has now filed a formal diplomatic complaint with Washington and is portraying the off-hand remark as a statement of official American policy.
Gen. Jack Keane, who retired from the US Army in 2003, testified before the House Homeland Security Committee October 26. The hearing was on domestic security, not Iranian policy.
Keane talked about the accusation that Iran plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. He called for a hard response. “Why don’t we kill them?” he asked without directly advocating assassinations of Iranian officials “We kill other people who are running terrorist organizations against the United States,” apparently referring to the shooting of Osama bin Laden earlier this year,
The Islamic Republic has converted this off-hand suggestion by a private citizen into official policy.
Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Sunday Iran would take legal action in some unnamed court against the United States for promoting assassination.
He said the open discussion of assassination in the US Congress shows just how brazen American officials really are.
Gen. Hassan Firuzabadi, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran as chairman of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, said he would take all necessary actions to foil American assassination plots.
In an interview on state television, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said that an American “congressman” had ordered that the general commanding Iran’s Qods Force must be assassinated. “This is nothing but state terrorism,” Larijani said. “Everyone has been aware [of US support for terrorism], but to do this in such a blatant manner, in an official institution, is very surprising.”
The Fars news agency reported that “several” officials of the State Department and Defense Department had said Washington should assassinate Iranian officials.
Last Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned Livia Leu Agosti, the Swiss ambassador in Tehran who represents the United States as well, to the Foreign Ministry to hear a condemnation of a congressional hearing “on the issue of assassinating Iranian officials,” state broadcasting reported.
It said the Iranian official who talked to Agosti said the American arguments for assassinations “contradict Washington’s legal obligations to combat terrorism.”