The State Department dismissed the chants of “death to America” that rang out through Iran on Thursday as nothing more than heated political “rhetoric” that doesn’t prevent the U.S. and Iran from working together.
Thursday marked the 37th anniversary of the sacking of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and it was marked again by demonstrations that included burning American flags and the “death to America” chant.
But in Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said repeatedly that this is just rhetoric, even as reporters noted that “death to America” appears to be Iran’s official government policy that is repeated at the highest levels of its government.
“This day certainly brings out the over-hyped rhetoric on the part of many in the Iranian government,” Toner said. “We don’t necessarily want to engage in all the various statements that are made on a day like today.”
“Like any country, there’s heated political rhetoric that comes out, and I’m just not going to respond to every instance of that in this case,” he added.
“No one likes to see this kind of hyper-charged rhetoric on the part of any government anywhere, and anti-American sentiments expressed,” he said when asked if the State Department would like Iran to reject its “death to America” slogan. “But again, we’re not going to base our whole relationship going forward … on these kind of heated political remarks.”
When pressed on whether the government thinks Iran’s official policy is “death to America,” Toner said, “No.”
“We continue to see Iranian behavior in the region that is frankly not positive, that is unconstructive … with regard to Yemen, with regard to Syria, but other places as well, and that raise our concerns,” he said. “And as much as we can engage constructively Iran on any of those issues, we’re gonna do so, but we’re mindful of the fact that its behavior hasn’t changed across the board” even after the Iran nuclear deal was agreed upon.
