Tehran, May 1 -- Iran has rejected the US' "self-defence" justification for starting the war, accusing it of misusing the concept to legitimise what it characterised as "full-fledged aggression", arguing that it faced no prior armed attack or any other threat from Tehran to use as a garb of self-preservation.
That April 21 statement, attributed to State Department's legal advisor Reed Rubinstein said, in part, that Washington "is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defence of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States' own inherent right of self-defence," citing the threat of Iran's ballistic missile programme and a need to ensure Iran "will never have nuclear weapons."Iranian Foreig...