Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps march in a parade in Tehran, Sept. 22, 2011. Photo: Reuters / Stringer / File.

i24 News – The UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee released a report Wednesday, which recommended that the British government should designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

Furthermore, the MPs called for the influential branch of the Iranian military to face sanctions.

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have already classified the IRGC as a terrorist entity.

“But the committee’s report also says the UK government should work with the US to encourage Iran to play a ‘positive, constructive and predictable role’ as a regional power,” reported UK outlet The Independent.

It argued that the UK strategy should radiate a clear message that “Iran’s destabilising activities are unacceptable because they adversely impact the region and its people, but that, when the time comes, the door is open for diplomacy.”

With particular reference to the IRGC, committee chairman Tom Tugendhat said: “The group’s destructive philosophy and violence within Iran and across the region make a compelling case for it to be singled out for sanction.”

They cited its malign and destabilizing effect across large swathes of the region as it materially and structurally supports non-state actors, including Houthi rebels in Yemen, its Lebanese Shiite proxy Hezbollah, various paramilitary groups in Iraq and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the Gaza Strip.

Iran has also been heavily involved in propping up the Bashar Al-Assad regime in Syria, in which it has invested enormous money and resources. It has embedded an extensive network in the country — including IRGC fighters — although Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in an attempt to prevent Tehran from establishing a land bridge from its territory to the Mediterranean Sea.