Zarif to US: Targeting IRGC won’t revive Daesh, Nusra

Iran's foreign minister has taken to task the countries which first created Takfiri terror groups like Daesh to set the stage for waging wars under the pretext of fighting them, saying the blacklisting of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) by the US will not help those states revive the terror groups of their own making.

Calling those countries "losers of our region's War on Terror," Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his official Twitter page on Thursday that it was time for them to “face the fact that you've exhausted every wrong choice and scapegoating [Iran's IRGC] won’t be your panacea.”

The phrase "War on Terror" was first used by ex-US president George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York in 2001. He called on US allies to join Washington in a military campaign, which was claimed to be aimed at responding to the terrorist act.

"Losers of our region's War on Terror cannot rescind history. Targeting #IRGC won't revive ISIS and Nusra—their clients and very creations," Zarif said, apparently referring to the US and its allies, which have on numerous occasions intervened militarily in different regional countries under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Attached to the tweet was an image of an article published by the British Independent daily in 2014, when Daesh -- which was born from the ashes of al-Qaeda -- showed face in Iraq and Syria and made sweeping territorial gains in the two neighboring states.

It was the latest in a series of tweets by the top Iranian diplomat in condemnation of a decision on April 8 by US President Donald Trump to blacklist the elite IRGC force, which offered a helping hand to the national armies of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and paved the way for them to rid their countries of Daesh terrorists in late 2017.

SS