Bachmann says US embassy in Iran remark ‘taken out of context’

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (Minn.) campaign Wednesday sought to clarify what some portrayed as an embarrassing foreign policy gaffe from the GOP presidential hopeful, saying her comments about a U.S. embassy presence in Iran had been “taken out of context.”

At a campaign event in Waverly, Iowa, Bachmann praised the United Kingdom for pulling their embassy staff out of Tehran after students stormed the embassy complex during a protest Tuesday.

“That’s exactly what I would do. We wouldn’t have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn’t allow that to be there,” she said according to media reports.

{mosads}The United States has not had an embassy in Tehran since 1980, after the Iranian hostage crisis.

In a statement released Wednesday, Bachmann communications director Alice Stewart said the congresswoman was “fully aware that we do not have an embassy in Iran and have not had one since 1980.”

“She was agreeing with the actions taken by the British to secure their embassy personnel and was speaking in the hypothetical, that if she was President of the United States and if we had an embassy in Iran, she would have taken the same actions as the British,” Stewart added.

“Her remarks are being taken out of context, given that she has spoken on this subject several times in the past 24 hours and made it clear that she knew we did not have an Iranian embassy,” the statement said.

Bachmann has made a tough approach toward Iran a centerpiece of her foreign policy platform. During a GOP debate last week, she said she would consider “every military option” to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.