Republican Sen. Roger Marshall (Kansas) said in an interview on Wednesday that President Donald Trump faces issues on par with those of World War II with regard to the U.S. and Israel\u2019s war with Iran, seeming to suggest that Trump should nuke Iran in order to prevent the country from ever having nuclear weapons.
\nMarshall was asked by a Newsmax anchor if he believes that the U.S. military will \u201chave to go in and finish this job\u201d if negotiations between the U.S. and Iran for a permanent ceasefire continue for several more weeks.
\n\u201cI think that\u2019s right,\u201d said the senator. \u201cPrevious presidents have had the same issues on what to do. Think about President Truman\u2019s decision on dropping the bomb, and D-Day for President Eisenhower.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got to take everything into consideration,\u201d Marshall said, including whether negotiations are \u201ctruly making progress or not.\u201d
\nEarlier in the interview, the senator said that the U.S.\u2019s aggression against Iran is necessary because \u201cIran can never, never, ever have a nuclear weapon.\u201d
\n\u201cIf Iran had a nuclear weapon, gasoline would be $10 a gallon, and for generations to come, Americans\u2019 lives would be threatened,\u201d the lawmaker said.
\nThe statements echo Trump\u2019s genocidal rhetoric toward Iran, including his threat to \u201cblow up the rest of their Country\u201d if negotiations falter on Tuesday. Legal experts have said that Trump\u2019s indiscriminate threats against Iran as a whole, as well as his pledges to target civilian infrastructure like power plants, constitute threats to commit war crimes.
\nMarshall also bragged about the harm that the U.S. is causing civilians with Trump\u2019s blockade on Iran.
\n\u201cWe also have this embargo working as well, the blockade, and we\u2019re literally starving them,\u201d said Marshall, \u201cboth financially and they can\u2019t feed themselves either, very long.\u201d
\nThe use of starvation as a weapon of war is prohibited under international law.
\nThe UN indeed warned last month that an additional 45 million people may be \u201cpushed into acute hunger by price rises\u201d if the conflict and closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue through June, adding to the already record high of 319 million people currently facing acute food insecurity. Iran previously pledged to open passage through the strait as a term of the temporary ceasefire agreement, but is still prohibiting ships from crossing due to Israel\u2019s attacks on Lebanon and the U.S.\u2019s blockade of Iranian ports, which Iranian officials have said are both violations of the ceasefire.
\nRepublicans have previously called for the usage of nuclear weapons with impunity. Last May, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida), said that Israel should drop a nuclear weapon on Gaza. \u201cWe nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture and it needs to be defeated.\u201d
\nThe staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker\u2019s statements were condemned by rights advocates \u2014 but, just weeks later, Republican leaders granted him a seat on the high-powered House Foreign Affairs Committee.
\nThis followed a remark by another Republican House lawmaker, Rep. Tim Walberg (Michigan), who said in March of 2024 that Gaza should be attacked \u201clike Nagasaki and Hiroshima.\u201d
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\n#Iran #NuclearThreat #USPolitics #GOP #WarCrimes #Sanctions #HumanitarianCrisis #MiddleEastConflict #TrumpRhetoric #InternationalLaw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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