U.S., U.N. Security Council Members Talk Iran Response
A U.S. representative is meeting separately with members of the United Nations Security Council concerning a potential international response to the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador on U.S. soil, the State Department said today.
America’s U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, is meeting with member nations today as part of the U.S. government’s effort to “unite world opinion” against Iran, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden said today that “nothing has been taken off the table” when it comes to America’s possible response to the alleged plot.
“It is an outrageous act that the Iranians are going to have to be held accountable,” Biden told ABC News’ “Good Morning America”. “This is really over the top.”
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday the DEA and FBI had disrupted a plot “conceived, sponsored and… directed from Iran” to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in or outside a crowded Washington, D.C. restaurant which potentially would have been followed up by bombings of the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies. The U.S. said an Iranian-American, 56-year-old Manssor Arbabsiar of Corpus Christi, Texas, was working for elements of the Iranian government when he attempted to hire hitmen from the feared Zetas Mexican drug cartel to carry out the hit, but Arbabsiar was unwittingly speaking to a DEA informant from the start.
Senior Obama administration officials had previously told ABC News the U.S. response would not include the possibility of an armed conflict with Iran and — though a complaint filed in federal court directly tied Iran’s elite Quds military unit to the plot — there was no information that Iran’s top leaders were aware or had any role.