UN Ambassador Mike Waltz refused to take the threat of more war crimes against Iran from this reckless regime off the table during an interview on CBS this Sunday.
Waltz was asked by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan about Trump's latest rant over the weekend, where he threatened to bomb Iranian power plants if Iran doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday. When Brennan asked if that included a nuclear power plant in Tehran as well, Waltz tried to hedge a bit, but wouldn't take it off the table.
BRENNAN: Okay, but in this case, in that clarification, the reason I'm asking you is when the president says he's going to bomb energy infrastructure, civilian energy infrastructure, is he going to bomb a nuclear power plant or is that off the table?
WALTZ: Well, I would never take anything off the table for the president, certainly not on national television. However, there are larger plants. There's one outside of Tehran. There are others outside of other cities that are gas fired, thermal powered.
I think the important point here is to understand the IRGC, a declared terrorist organization not only by us, but a number of European countries controls a huge swath of Iran's critical infrastructure, their economy, and certainly many of their governing institutions.
And so to the extent were degrading their military capability and their defense industrial base, all options should be on the table and the president's made that very clear.
Brennan followed up by asking Waltz how they "ensure that this doesn't constitute a war crime," rather than simply pointing out to Waltz that it would be a war crime, and then allowed Waltz to serve up a big heaping helping of whataboutism in response before pretending they would be justified in bombing civilian infrastructure should they decide to do so.
BRENNAN: How do you ensure that this doesn't constitute a war crime, which the UN Secretary General said an attack on energy infrastructure could be? How do you make sure this is not mass punishment for innocents?
WALTZ: Well, I think, you know, I would encourage and will encourage the Secretary General to point out the 20 to 30 thousand Iranians that the regime massacred at scale. The civilian infrastructure that they're attacking (crosstalk) and when you have a regime that that has its grips and so much critical infrastructure that's using it to further not only the repression of its own people to attack its neighbors, and in contravention of UN sanctions to march towards a nuclear weapon then, that makes those legitimate targets
BRENNAN: Okay, well, you know that in many of these places, water desalinization is linked into that energy infrastructure, civilian infrastructure. This is why it's a question...
WALTZ: I have no doubt that the president, the Pentagon, their team will ensure that what they target is geared towards the military infrastructure of Iran. But I have to tell you, they deliberately blend, have a long history, everything from hiding weapons under schools and hospitals, to using power plants and other critical infrastructure to not only power their military but their civilian and they deliberately blend in contravention of international law.
They're not legitimate targets. He knows it. Brennan knows it. The world knows it. They could care less how many civilians they kill, how many laws they break, and how much permanent damage to the entire world they do. They're counting on never being held accountable for their actions.
