Ex-Obama advisor warns Iran strikes 'might' lead to civilian massacres, ignores protest deaths

Ex-Obama advisor warns Iran strikes 'might' lead to civilian massacres, ignores protest deaths(Image: FOX NEWS)

 

Ben Rhodes, a former national security adviser, stated that President Donald Trump's military strikes against Iran "may" result in the deaths of civilians, giving the impression that he was ignoring the deaths of Iranian protesters. Rhodes, who previously worked under the Obama administration, wrote in a New York Times essay on Monday that Trump "may come to regret" his strikes against Iran over the weekend, warning that Iranian citizens "may" be killed as a result.

 "Mr.  Trump’s only stated plan for regime change was a call for the Iranian people to rise up," Rhodes wrote.  "Now what? Doing so may result in mass murder. Some version of the regime could still cling to power."

 The thousands of deaths that were reported as a result of the Iranian regime's crackdown on protesters were not mentioned in Rhodes' essay. The death toll has fluctuated between approximately 3,100 and more than 36,000, but exact figures have not been established. "Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was a brutal and repressive force in the lives of Iranians for decades," he acknowledged as an alternative. Rhodes said that Trump's operation had already led to the deaths of "untold civilians" based on Iranian state reports that a school had been hit in the strike.

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 "Mr.  Trump’s authoritarianism is not abstract.  He can use the immense power of the United States to serve his own interests, not the public's, in any way he chooses. War should never be normal.  We don't know where this one will lead, but we do know that it has already killed numerous civilians, including dozens of school-going girls. The desensitization of Americans to this kind of violence is part of what is broken in our society," Rhodes said.

 Although authorities have stated that they are "looking into" reports of "civilian harm" caused by the military operation, the United States of America has not claimed responsibility for the strike on the school. Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, "We will not deliberately target a school."

Source: FOX NEWS