TEHRAN (The Thursday Times) — Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, accused US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday of “openly and insolently threatening to starve Iranians through a blockade”, calling the remark an admission that Washington was pursuing policies that amount to war crimes.
In a post on X, Baghaei quoted Rubio as saying “they have to eat eventually” and called it “yet another admission” that the United States was committing war crimes, on top of what he described as its wars of aggression and “economic terrorism” against Iran.
After decades of failed coercion, threats, sanctions, terrorism, and aggression, he said, the United States kept repeating the same mistakes under new names. He likened it to what the historian Barbara Tuchman called a “March of Folly”: a government that sticks to a disastrous course, refuses to learn from its failures, and digs in further with each setback.
‘Eventually you have to eat’
Rubio made the remark to reporters on Tuesday after a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Paris, where he said the US economic campaign was doing so much damage that major combat operations were not needed. “Eventually you have to eat; eventually you have to be able to pay your own fighters and your own security forces,” he said, according to the State Department transcript.
He said the pressure “is going to get even worse”, and that once the last oil cargoes that slipped through the blockade are sold, almost all of Iran’s oil revenue will dry up. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had already answered the same remark on Wednesday.
The United States has not responded to Baghaei’s post. US officials describe the blockade and sanctions as pressure on Iran’s government, not on its civilians.
Pressure instead of strikes
Rubio repeated the argument on Friday, telling a lawyers’ convention in Washington that the economic pain inflicted on Iran meant there was no need for more US military action. President Donald Trump has also told advisers he may hold off on new strikes unless Iran or the Houthis provoke the United States, according to people familiar with the discussions, while Israel presses for a fresh campaign.
The war, which began in February, has not stopped. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have claimed to have shot down a US MQ-1 drone over Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, while tankers in the strait continue to report hitting mines.
