Trump’s U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz says bombing every bridge and power plant in Iran wouldn’t be a war crime
UN Ambassador Mike Waltz defended President Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants, he told ABC on Sunday. this week He said such strikes would not amount to war crimes.
“All options are definitely on the table,” Waltz told host Jonathan Karl. “We can take out this infrastructure relatively easily. Iran’s air defenses have been absolutely destroyed.”
Waltz went further and preempted criticism: “It is not a war crime to go ahead and shake hands with many critics, to use irresponsible terms like ‘war crimes,’ to attack, to destroy infrastructure that has clearly and historically been used for dual military purposes.”
Karl put pressure on him. “The President said today that he will destroy every power plant and every bridge in Iran. He’s not just talking about those that support military infrastructure. He’s talking about every bridge.”
“This would be an escalating ladder,” Waltz said, comparing it to World War II. “Of course we bombed and destroyed bridges, other infrastructure, power plants.”
Waltz made similar comments on CBS: to call war crime frames a “false, false and ridiculous notion.” “Bridges and power plants operated by the Revolutionary Guard are absolutely legitimate military targets, not only now but also historically,” he said, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright asked CNN’s Jake Tapper the same question. State of the Union, in question: “The President is looking for maximum effect. No, I’m not worried about that.”
Waltz’s comments came hours after Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei went further in the other direction: to call The ongoing US naval blockade of Iranian ports is “illegal and criminal” and a “war crime and crime against humanity”. Baqaei said it was the blockade, not Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz, that violated the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire.
The pushback isn’t just coming from Iran. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson made headlines earlier this month when he called the idea of attacking Iran’s civilian infrastructure “despicable on every level.” “It starts with a promise to use the U.S. military, our military, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country, which is to commit a war crime, a moral crime against the people of that country,” Carlson said. in question In a video on April 7.
Under Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, “Civilian objects cannot be the target of attack” and attacks are prohibited if they are “expected to cause accidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination of these, which would be excessive compared to the concrete and direct military advantage expected.”
Trump had threatened on Truth Social earlier Sunday to “disable every power plant and every bridge in Iran” if a deal was not reached. The two-week ceasefire ends on Wednesday.
