Iranian Parliament Passes Resolution to Name Army and CIA Terrorist Organizations

In a largely symbolic response to the passage of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on September 26 expressing the Sense of Congress that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should named a terrorist organization, 215 members of the Majlis signed a resolution to urging Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to designate the CIA and the US army "terrorist organizations." The vote took place at an open session of the 290-member Iranian parliament on September 29.

This is the precise sort of tit-for-tat escalation US Senators were warned of when considering the Kyl-Lieberman amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization bill.

According an AP article, "The parliament said the Army and the CIA were terrorists because of the atomic bombing of Japan; the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; support of the killings of Palestinians by Israel; the bombing and killing Iraqi civilians and the torture of imprisoned terror suspects." A statement signed by the 215 members who voted for the resolution reads, "The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror."

Like all Parliamentary legislation, the resolution must first be reviewed and ratified by the Guardian Council, the country's constitutional watchdog composed of six clerics an six jurists, before it can become law.