Retired General Calls Trump ‘an Absolutely Terrible Commander-in-Chief,’ Predicts ‘Nuremberg Trials’ for His ‘Illegal’ Orders

Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson offered a scathing assessment of President Donald Trump’s management of the Iran war on Tuesday morning, calling him “an absolutely terrible commander-in-chief” and predicting Nuremberg-style trials would be needed in the wake of his “illegal” orders.

Anderson’s comments came in the wake of social media posts from the president threatening Iran that have shocked many political observers on both sides of the partisan divide.

Early Easter Sunday morning, Trump dropped a profanity-laced demand for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with a deadline of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, threatening to bomb bridges and power plants if the deadline was missed.

He defiantly defended his post in a fiery press conference on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, Trump spelled out in grim terms what he believes should happen if Iran misses the deadline, writing, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” Trump continued. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Numerous international legal experts have said these threats from Trump, if carried out, would constitute war crimes.

Minutes after Trump’s controversial comments were posted, Anderson appeared on CNN News Central and was interviewed by anchor Kate Bolduan for his reaction.

Trump “has stuck his his fist in the middle of a hornet’s nest and he doesn’t know how to get it out,” said Anderson, calling the situation in Iran “much, much more complex” than Venezuela and said the U.S. “continue[s] to underestimate the Iranians,” who had three key strengths: the “will to fight,” the highly-enriched uranium that we still don’t know where it is, and their control over the Strait of Hormuz, which was now “only open to Iranian traffic.”

“In fact, their exports have actually increased since the start of this war,” Anderson continued. “So Donald Trump continues to miscalculate on this war. And that’s why we are right in the middle, I believe, of the greatest geopolitical blunder that the United States has ever committed in its history.”

Later in the segment, Bolduan asked Anderson for his reaction to Trump’s threat for Iran’s “whole civilization” to “die tonight” if the deadline to reopen the strait is missed.

“Well, we already knew that Donald Trump was a pretty bad president, but now we know that he’s an absolutely terrible commander-in-chief as well,” replied Anderson.

Anderson further criticized Trump for the way “he continues to vacillate” and “offers contradictory messaging about what’s going on” with these threats, whether or not he supports the Iranian people, wants regime change, wants NATO allies to help us, does he need them, or not.

“This guy is just not competent in terms of leading this force,” said Anderson. “He has not set clear objectives, clear definable objectives, that the military can truly execute.”

Anderson predicted that when the 8 p.m. deadline arrived, Trump would “figure out a way to either extend the deadline, because there’s no way that he can do what he says he’s going to do, which is to bomb every single civilian target in the theater and in Iran,” because “it would be the commitment of a great war crime.”

“I’m old enough to remember the Nuremberg trials and how we’ve held the Germans accountable after what they — the atrocities they committed during World War II,” Anderson concluded. “And I’d hate to think, you know, five, 10 years from now, we’d be doing the same kind of thing with American soldiers and leaders that were made decisions that were being directed by the President of the United States that are illegal.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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