The image from the Iranian Majlis on Sunday was as theatrical as it was telling. Hundreds of "legislators," led by Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, stood in the green uniforms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), chanting "Death to America" and "Shame on you, Europe." But the theater quickly turned to a declaration of diplomatic war. In a move that effectively incinerates decades of European "honest broker" diplomacy, Qalibaf officially designated all European Union armies as terrorist organizations.
For years, Brussels has attempted to play the middleman-the sophisticated, "reasonable" alternative to Washington’s "Maximum Pressure." That era is over. The Mullahs didn’t just bite the hand that fed them; they’ve declared that hand to be the claw of a terrorist.
Since the 2015 JCPOA, the European Union has clung to a "Third Way"-a belief that through enough trade incentives, back-channel dialogues, and strategic patience, the Islamic Republic could be socialized into the community of nations. Even as the IRGC plotted assassinations on European soil and sent drones to slaughter Ukrainians, Brussels resisted blacklisting the group, fearing it would close the door to diplomacy.
That door has now been kicked shut from the inside. Tehran’s "reciprocal" designation of EU militaries is a direct response to the EU finally-and belatedly-blacklisting the IRGC last week following the January Massacre, where an estimated 36,500 Iranians were murdered by the regime in a span of forty-eight hours. By labeling the French, German, and British militaries as terrorists, Tehran has signaled that it no longer recognizes the legitimacy of European security architecture.
There is a profound, dark irony in a regime that uses lethal injections on teenage detainees and marks protesters’ homes with Red Xs for liquidation calling professional, democratic militaries "terrorists." The IRGC is a paramilitary mafia that controls forty percent of the Iranian economy and operates as a global franchise for suicide bombings and maritime piracy.
In contrast, the European armies now listed by Tehran are the very forces that protected the continent from the Islamic State-a group the IRGC claims to have defeated while actually paving the way for its own regional hegemony. By equating the French Foreign Legion or the German Bundeswehr with the butchers of the Basij, Tehran isn't just being provocative; it is declaring that the rules-based international order is its enemy.
This escalation presents a moment of absolute moral and strategic clarity for the West. For too long, the Islamic Republic has exploited the daylight between Washington and Brussels. They used the "good cop, bad cop" routine to stall for time while they refined uranium and crushed dissent. With the EU militaries now officially terrorists in the eyes of Iranian law, the European Third Way has reached a dead end. There is no neutral ground left to stand on. If Tehran views the British Royal Navy as a terrorist entity, then any European diplomat sitting across from an Iranian official in Istanbul this week is, by the regime's own definition, negotiating with the handler of terrorist forces.
The Iranian regime only understands the language of strength and isolation. The current events demand a total UN "snapback" of sanctions. The fiction that the JCPOA or any successor agreement exists is over. The U.S. and its European allies must trigger the full return of all United Nations sanctions, ending the regime’s ability to legally procure dual-use technology and further isolating its financial sector.
Furthermore, if European soldiers are terrorists, European ambassadors should not remain in Tehran. The EU should move beyond summoning envoys and begin a coordinated withdrawal of diplomatic missions until the terror designation is rescinded and the January Massacre perpetrators are held accountable.
As Jared Kushner and U.S. envoys prepare for talks in Turkey, they must not allow the Mullahs to use diplomacy as a tactical pause. Negotiating with a regime that has just labeled your closest allies as terrorists is not the art of the deal-it’s a recipe for humiliation. The Islamic Republic has finally shown Europe the same "respect" it has shown its own people: the barrel of a gun and a label of "terrorist."
By declaring war on the West’s collective security, Tehran has inadvertently simplified the map. The choice is no longer between engagement and pressure. The choice is between the survival of a terrorist theocracy and the survival of a free Iran. It is time for Brussels to stop acting like a middleman and start acting like an ally. The Third Way is buried in the streets of Tehran.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx