Ayatollah Khamenei, President Rouhani react to the US announcement on IRGC

Tabnak – The US administration’s recent move in designating the IRGC as a terrorist group has sparked a unanimous condemning reactions from the high-ranking Iranian officials. In separate speeches on Tuesday, Iranian Supreme Leader and President expressed their positions on the issue.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the recent decision by the United States to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) a “foreign terrorist organization” is rooted in America’s “rancor” against the force, which has been on the forefront of the fight against enemies.

In a meeting with IRGC personnel and their family members in the capital Tehran on Monday, the eve of IRGC Commemoration Day, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Revolution Guards were on the front-lines of the fight against enemies both inside and outside of Iran.

“The IRGC is the vanguard both on the field confronting the enemy on [Iranian] borders and even several thousand kilometers away [in Syria] as well as on the political battleground against the enemy,” the Leader said, adding that Americans hold a grudge against the force for that reason.

Ayatollah Khamenei said such evil will rebound to the evildoer. “Of course, such malice will lead nowhere; and, with their deceit rebounding back to themselves, the Islamic Republic’s enemies — such as Trump and the idiots... in the US government — are moving toward rock bottom,” the Leader said.

Ayatollah Khamenei said 40 years of an all-out pressure campaign against Iran had failed to impede the country’s progress, recalling that such pressure failed to break Iran even when the Islamic Republic was young.

Iran’s power, the Leader said, comes from its people’s “perseverance, self-sacrifice, and insight.” “The Revolution,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, “will undoubtedly go on.”

In separate remarks, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also condemned Trump's move, saying the United States as the “world’s leading terrorist” is in no position to make such a decision.

“You made another mistake and called the IRGC terrorist; nobody cares what you do,” Rouhani said in a speech delivered on the occasion of the National Nuclear Energy Day in Tehran on Tuesday.

"You thought you could sow division in Iran or hurt the IRGC's popularity by speaking against it?" Rouhani asked. "Rest assured that today the IRGC is more popular than ever before in the hearts of the Iranian nation as well as in the region."

Rouhani noted that the US anger was not surprising because the IRGC has been protecting the region from Daesh (ISIS) and other terrorist groups planted by Washington. “The United States keeps using Daesh as an instrument and is at the pinnacle of global terrorism,” the president said.

“It was the IRGC that rescued regional nations from terrorist atrocities,” the Iranian president said, adding, “America and Zionists hold a grudge against the IRGC because it has always been the flag-bearer of resistance.”

On Monday, the White House labeled Iran “a State Sponsor of Terrorism” and the IRGC a “foreign terrorist organization,” claiming that the elite Iranian force “actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”