'Do The Iranians Have A Right To Self-Defense?': State Dept. Pressed Over Potential Strike On Israel

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During a State Department press briefing, Spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked about the US line on self-defense and a potential retaliatory strike by Iran on Israel.

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Transcript

00:00And just on the question of an Iranian response, so in April, you know, there was an attack

00:06on a – an Israeli attack on an Iranian diplomatic facility or consulate facility.

00:14I think at the time, there was never a conclusion from the U.S. whether it was – whether it

00:19did count as a consulate facility or not.

00:22Now we've got an attack on Iranian territory.

00:27Do they have – do the Iranians have the right to self-defense in this case?

00:31So I'm going to answer that question this way.

00:36The right is one question.

00:37What's productive is another.

00:39And ultimately, we don't think it's productive or conducive to anyone's interests, including

00:44Iran's, to conduct further actions, be they retaliatory or not.

00:50Any further action by Iran just raises the risk of increased tensions.

00:55It raises the risk of further response from Israel or from other parties, and ultimately

01:01gets us into this position that we have worried about from the beginning, that you get a

01:04conflict that can spiral out of control.

01:07Now, we are working to prevent that from happening, and I think the point that we are trying to

01:10make to all the parties involved is that they all have agency as well in trying to prevent

01:15that from becoming an eventuality.

01:17And so that requires all parties, including Iran, making the appropriate decisions in

01:22the days to come.

01:24And that means not taking steps that could lead to a wider conflict.

01:27We think it's incumbent upon them to make those types of decisions.

01:31In the interest of consistency, though, wouldn't – your message to the Israelis is this is

01:37not helpful, or that's the President's words.

01:40I guess people would expect you to maybe go a bit further than to say this is not helpful

01:44when you're making these kind of requests of the Iranians not to respond.

01:49I mean, the President may – the President said that he didn't believe it was helpful,

01:53and the Secretary said on Thursday that all parties should stop taking escalatory actions,

02:00and I don't think we could be any more clear than that.

02:01Yeah.

02:02Go ahead.

02:03Just to re-follow up on Alex's line of questioning, at least one airline has said that they're

02:09going to avoid airspace over Iran and Iraq in the coming days.

02:14Is that advice that's come from the United States?

02:16Is there a security assessment for U.S. airlines in particular that there should be a – I

02:19don't think it'd fly over Iran.

02:21I would defer to the FAA to speak to that.

02:24It's not something that I'm aware of from here.

02:26So, yeah.

'Do The Iranians Have A Right To Self-Defense?': State Dept. Pressed Over Potential Strike On Israel

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