Los Angeles Times: The Obama administration on Wednesday stepped up its rhetoric against Iran in the wake of an alleged plot by elements in that country to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.
Top officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, lashed out at Iran, pledging that the United States would increase its efforts to isolate the country, already the target of economic sanctions in connection with its nuclear weapons policy.
As it has before, the White House insisted that no options were off the table in dealing with Iran, which Carney accused of "a dangerous escalation of the long-standing use of violence."
On Tuesday, U.S. officials announced they had foiled a plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir. Two men, including a member of the Iranian special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, were charged in New York federal court with conspiring to kill the diplomat.
Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian American, is in custody; the whereabouts of the other man are unknown, officials said. Arbabsiar, who lives in Texas, traveled to Mexico, where he tried to hire a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the assassination with a bomb attack at one of the ambassador's favorite restaurants in Washington, according to U.S. officials. |
