when she told supporters in Iowa that a Bachmann presidency would mean no US embassy in Iran.
Considering the overrun of the British embassy the day before she spoke, the comment might not seem out of place—but for the fact there has been no US embassy in Tehran for a third of a century.
Bachmann told a Waverly, Iowa, crowd that, were she the president, “we wouldn’t have an American embassy in Iran.”
Of course, there hasn’t been one under Presidents Reagan Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama either. And given the public comments by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi, the likelihood there will be any US embassy in Tehran in the near future seems pretty remote.
Bachmann was swiftly subject to ridicule in the blogosphere and her sinking candidacy sank even lower since she was not speaking about some esoteric topic but about a simple fact understood by most Americans.
Her campaign staff moved into spin control the next day, explaining that Bachmann knew full well there is no US embassy in Iran today and saying she was speaking theoretically in light of the attack on Britain’s embassy.
Her campaign issued a statement saying, “She was agreeing with the actions taken by the British to secure their embassy personnel and was speaking in the hypothetical that, if she was president of the United States and if we had any embassy in Iran, she would have taken the same actions as the British.”
The statement complained that her remarks were taken out of context.
The statement then went on the offensive: “As she has previously stated, President Obama has taken his eye off of Iran, the most significant security threat in the region, and allowed them the luxury of time to move toward obtaining nuclear weapons. She will never allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons that would threaten our ally Israel and the United States.”
Bachmann has been an outspoken critic of Iran over the past few weeks. Earlier this month she urged the Pentagon to “prepare a war plan” for Iran, something the Pentagon has had for three decades. She also said that President Ahmadi-nejad had threatened to launch nuclear warheads at the US and Israel, something he has never said.
Last week, she told Glenn Beck that the US was facing a “new axis of evil,” composed of Iran, Syria, North Korea, China and Russia.