If Washington designates Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as terrorists then Tehran will immediately retailiate in kind, a majority of Iranian parliamentarians said on Sunday.

The United States is expected to designate the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization, according to Reuters, marking the first time Washington has formally labeled another country’s military a terrorist group.

This has prompted an immediate response by 255 out of the 290 Iranian lawmakers, the domestic IRNA newsagency reported. They said:

We will answer any action taken against this force with a reciprocal action. So the leaders of America, who themselves are the creators and supporters of terrorists in the (Middle East) region, will regret this inappropriate and idiotic action.

IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari warned in 2017 that if Trump went ahead with the long-anticipated move, “then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has advocated the change in U.S. policy as part of the Trump administration’s tough posture toward Tehran.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, host of SALEM Radio’s National show AMERICA First, formerly Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Breitbart News National Security editor, appeared on Breitbart News Daily in 2017 and urged U.S. President Donald Trump to act against the IRGC.

“This is an organization that has cost the lives of scores of U.S. service men and women, that is a terrorist actor across the whole region,” Mr. Gorka charged.

If he did so, “Then he sends a very clear message that not only is this deal that we’ve inherited a disastrous deal, we are going to take the fight to the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world today. The designation of the IRGC would send that message.”

Established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi’ite clerical ruling system, the IRGC is Iran’s most powerful security organization. It has control over large sectors of the Iranian economy and has a huge influence in its political system.