The US will coordinate with Israel on response to Iran missile attack
From CNN's Kylie Atwood
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller would not say whether Iran’s nuclear program is a legitimate target for Israeli retaliation after
the Iranian missile attack, saying, again, the US plans to “discuss those consequences with our Israeli counterparts before we talk about them publicly.
“This is not to say I’m ruling anything out and that I’m ruling anything in, but I would answer any question this way, which is, we want to have these conversations directly with our Israeli counterparts over the coming days,” he said in response to a question from CNN.
Miller echoed National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in stating the US will coordinate with Israel on its response to the attack on Israel, calling it “a significant escalation.” He also pledged that there would be consequences.
“Of course there must be consequences for Iran for this attack. We’ve made clear that there must be consequences. I’m not going to get into what those consequences are today, but they are things on which we will be coordinating with our Israeli counterparts,” Miller said at a press briefing Tuesday.
He said the missile attack was defeated in part due to coordination between the US, Israel and partners. Miller did not specify which other countries.
Asked if Israel has done anything escalatory in the past weeks, Miller argued Israel “certainly” has “done things to expand the conflict, but if you look at the actions they have taken, they were bringing terrorists to justice.”
Israel last week assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a major strike on Beirut.
By contrast, he said that today “Iran came to the defense of a terrorist organization.”
“If you look at what Iran did today — we have been warning for some time about the threat posed by Iran arming and funding terrorist groups across the Middle East, and the attack today just demonstrated the danger of those actions,” Miller said.
“What you saw was Iran launching a state on state attack to protect and defend the terrorist groups that it has built, nurtured and that it controls. So there is a difference,” Miller said Tuesday.
Miller also said “this wave of the attack is over,” adding that he does not mean other waves are coming. The US view is that it would be “incredibly escalatory” if Iran were to carry out further strikes in Israel.
