A former military intelligence officer with the CIA said the Trump administration is “competently wrong in assessment” to label Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist group”.

“In my opinion, the United States is completely wrong in its assessment. According to the definition provided by the United Nations and under international law, a terrorist group must be actively working to target civilians to weaken and destroy a legitimate government,” Philip Giraldi told Tasnim news agency.

“The IRGC is a military organization which acts in response to direction by the legitimate government of Iran, just as the United States military acts on direction of the White House. To say that the IRGC is terrorist because Washington disapproves of Iran and its involvement in Syria using the IRGC as its instrument is completely inappropriate,” Giraldi is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said.

Source: Iranian media