Iran's foreign minister says if war breaks out it won't be a 'limited one'

Mohammad Javad Zarif and Hassan Rouhani.
(Image credit: ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images)

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran does not plan on starting a war, but they will finish one if a conflict should eventually happen.

In an interview airing on Sunday's edition of CBS' Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan asked Zarif if he was "confident" that Iran could avoid a war. Zarif was pretty forthright in his response, simply responding "no." He did add that he is confident Tehran will not start a conflict, however. But he said "whoever starts one will not be the one who finishes it." When Brennan asked him to clarify, Zarif said that he means if a war does break out it will not be a "limited" one.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.