Kissinger: Strike on Iran is an American decision

In an interview on Thursday, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said military action against Iran is an American decision, and he rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that the US should set “red lines” for Iran’s nuclear program.

Kissinger told The Washington Post that the US should not make public statements that could be construed by Israel or any other country as a justification for its going to war.

“We cannot subcontract the right to go to war — that is an American decision,” Kissinger said.

The statesman added that the US must decide for itself what it’s willing to live with vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic.

“We do need to define for ourselves, when we say that nuclear weapons are unacceptable, nuclear weapons capability is unacceptable; we need to know for ourselves what we mean by that,” Kissinger added.

Last month, US President Barack Obama dismissed as “noise” Netanyahu’s calls for red lines on Iran’s nuclear program. Last week, in a speech to the United Nations complete with a visual aid cartoon bomb, Netanyahu again called for a red line that, if crossed, would provide a casus belli for a military strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.