WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- A senior White House official has backpedaled on President Joe Biden’s recent remarks about the U.S. intention to “free Iran”, saying his comments were not meant as a policy statement.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden’s assertion a day earlier that “we’re going to free Iran” was meant to express “our solidarity with the protesters,” referring to violent, foreign-sponsored rioters that have waged deadly attacks on law-enforcement personnel, ordinary citizens as well as public and private properties.
“Don’t worry, we’re going to free Iran. They’re going to free themselves pretty soon,” Biden blurted out at a fundraising party in California for the Democratic Party candidates ahead of the November 8 midterm elections.
Asked if Biden’s remarks reflected Washington’s assessment that the Iranian government is near collapse, Kirby admitted, “We have no indication of that.”
On Friday, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi reminded Biden that Iranians, in fact, freed themselves from the American yoke 43 years ago by their Islamic Revolution in 1979 that toppled the U.S.-installed monarch.
“Iran was freed 43 years ago and is determined not to be occupied by you, and we will never be (your) milking cows,” Raisi told a massive crowd of demonstrators commemorating the anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. embassy here.
“Rabble-rousing and attempts to disrupt the country are different from protests, and rioters and those who create insecurity must be dealt with decisively,” the president said.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has also condemned the role of the U.S. and its Western and regional allies in the recent riots across Iran, saying that they used their intelligence agencies, media capacity and the internet as well as their past experiences to harm the Iranian nation.
Last week, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry declared that the United States and the United Kingdom were “directly” involved in the recent riots, adding that dozens of terrorists affiliated with the Zionist regime and anti-revolution groups have also been detained in the unrest.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian also slammed Biden’s remarks, saying that the White House “has increasingly promoted violence and terror in the recent riots,” demanding from Washington “stop hypocritical behavior.”