US ambassador to NATO says Iran ‘controlled by a bunch of crazy people’

Defense US ambassador to NATO says Iran ‘controlled by a bunch of crazy people’ Comments: by Tara Suter - 07/12/26 11:03 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Tara Suter - 07/12/26 11:03 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said Sunday that Iran is “controlled by a bunch of crazy people” after escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.

“President Trump’s a peacemaker, Jake, and he wants a deal with Iran. He wants to make sure that they never have a nuclear weapon, that they join the world as a contributor and a normalized country,” Whitaker told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

“But right now it’s, you know, as President Trump has said, and Marco Rubio has also stated, you know, this country is controlled by a bunch of crazy people,” he added.

The on-again, off-again war against Iran is nearing the five-month mark, and the fighting has put a strain on the global economy and raised oil and gas prices. Americans have also largely disapproved of the fighting in recent polling.

On Saturday, the U.S. military launched a third round of strikes against Iran, retaliating against an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, per U.S. Central Command (Centcom).

Iran said it was closing the strait after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a Cyprus-flagged container ship for using an “unauthorized route” through the waterway. Centcom said that a crew member was missing, with the ship experiencing “significant” damage to its engine room.

“Iran was provided yet another opportunity to demonstrate adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding after being held accountable for earlier attacks on commercial vessels but has again failed,” the military command said.

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