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Former national security advisor Ben Rhodes said President Donald Trump’s military strikes against Iran “may” get civilians killed, appearing to overlook 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. “Then what? Those who do may be massacred. Some version of the regime could still cling to power.”
Former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes criticized President Donald Trump’s military strikes on Iran. (Getty Images)
Rhodes’ essay did not reference the thousands of deaths reported after the Iranian regime’s crackdown on protesters. The death toll has ranged from approximately 3,100 to over 36,000, though exact numbers have not been verified.
Instead, he allowed, “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was a brutal and repressive force in the lives of Iranians for decades.”
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. There is nothing stopping him from wielding the awesome power of the United States to serve his own interests, not the public’s. War should never be normal. We don’t know where this one will lead, but we do know that it has already killed untold civilians — including dozens of girls who did nothing but go to school. The desensitization of Americans to this kind of violence is part of what is broken in our society,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes has been criticized for his role in the Obama administration’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal. (Carlos Jasso/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.S. has not claimed responsibility for the strike on the school, though authorities have said they were “looking into” reports of “civilian harm” caused by the military operation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated Monday that the U.S. “will not deliberately target a school.”
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Digital reached out to Rhodes and the White House for comment.
Rhodes has been attacking both the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, claiming they both “seem to be totally unconcerned about the human beings — on all sides — who will suffer.”
Rhodes’ essay did not reference the deaths of thousands of Iranian protesters earlier this year. (Francesco Militello Mirto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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His comments were blasted by conservative commentators, who pointed to the Obama-era Iran deal as a catalyst for allowing the situation to escalate to this point and placing blame on the Obama administration for not taking the threat from Iran seriously.
‘ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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