Retired General Warns Trump Against ‘Enormous Escalation’ in Bombing Iranian Power Plants: ‘People Will Say It’s a War Crime’

Retired U.S. Army General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Wesley Clark, advised President Donald Trump against bombing Iranian power plants on Sunday, warning that such a move could be considered a “war crime” and result in significant retaliation.

“It would be an enormous escalation,” said Clark during an appearance on NewsNation. “And if Iran can retaliate and they do go after the desalination plants and the power plants in the Gulf states, it’s gonna be a humanitarian catastrophe there also.”

He continued:

We could cripple some power plants without dropping bombs, but I think you’d see instead this would be B-52s and B-2s. We have air superiority and in some places air supremacy, so we can get our aircraft over there. We can pinpoint targets, we can destroy these power plants. Maybe there’s a military connection to this, maybe military necessity. A lot of people will say it’s a war crime because mostly these power plants are probably there for the civilian population, and so it’ll be certainly a questionable call when we and if we do this, but the retaliation, if Iran can retaliate – and thus far, they have shown every ability to retaliate – then there’s more hardship imposed on our friends and allies in the region, in the Gulf, and this doesn’t still open the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s the problem.

Asked whether he would consider such action to be a war crime himself, Clark responded, “I think you’ve got to look at it under a military law, and it’s one of those things that’s questionable. People are gonna argue both cases, but you cannot destroy civilian assets in an effort to put harm on the population.”

“Now, if you can show it has a military connection, that’s different,” he concluded. “But if it’s simply to put pressure on the government by harming the civilian population, then that’s de jure– that’s a war crime.”

Watch above via NewsNation.

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