After the U.S. navy launched strikes towards Iran for the third time in lower than every week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz stated Sunday that “all choices are on the desk,” saying that Iran “is just not dwelling as much as” the preliminary settlement negotiators reached in June.
“No matter whether or not you are celebration to some battle, you can not begin taking pictures in all instructions, attacking your neighbors, attacking civilian transport, civilian infrastructure, throwing mines in worldwide waterways, and appearing just like the irresponsible genocidal regime that many have at all times accused it of being,” Waltz stated in an interview with ABC Information’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“The world stands with the US that that is unacceptable habits, and the president … has at all times stated this was a performance-based MOU (memorandum of understanding),” Waltz added. “Iran is just not dwelling as much as it, and all choices are on the desk.”
U.S. Ambassador. to the United Nations Mike Waltz seems on ABC Information’ “This Week” on July 12, 2026
ABC Information
In a single day Saturday, U.S. Central Command introduced it had launched one other spherical of strikes after Iran attacked one other business ship within the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 140 Iranian targets have been hit inn these strikes, per CENTCOM, bringing the entire targets hit over the three nights to greater than 300.
On Saturday evening, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz was closed, an obvious violation of the memo of understanding beforehand signed by the U.S. and Iran. However Iran has accused the US of violating the ceasefire phrases
In a press release, Iran’s navy stated ships have been fired on after they “tried to maneuver alongside the unapproved route and ignored our warnings and reminders to right the route.”
“The implications of such an intervention are the accountability of the American-Zionist enemy and the international locations which have made their soil out there to the enemy base for these threats,” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy’s assertion stated.
Cargo ships anchored close to the Strait of Hormuz off the japanese coast of the United Arab Emirates at Khor Fakkan, July 12, 2026.
AFP through Getty Photographs
On Sunday morning, CENTCOM stated the waterway was open and that “site visitors is flowing.” The fact stays unclear.
“I feel Iran remains to be very a lot of the mindset that it may use the worldwide financial system as some kind of leverage,” Waltz stated. “We have stated right here on the United Nations, 143 nations have stood collectively and stated what Iran is doing is in violation of worldwide regulation.”
Iranian strikes on vessels within the Strait of Hormuz prompted earlier U.S. strikes this week. In a background name with reporters Friday, senior U.S. officers stated that the Iranians stated privately “that the firing on ships was from an errant system, an errant a part of their system that was attempting to undermine the deal.”
“If that’s to be believed, then the place is the self-discipline?,” Waltz stated. “We’re alleged to consider that some junior officers are going rogue and firing on ships, however but face no penalties from a dictatorial hierarchy-based entity just like the IRGC?”
He concluded: “I do not purchase it. I do not suppose we purchase it. And on the finish of the day, the place’s the self-discipline and the general public apology if that is the case? And that is merely what the president and his staff requested for.”
On Wednesday, Trump stated that in his view, the ceasefire with Iran is “over.”
“I do not wish to cope with them anymore. They’re scum. You recognize what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick individuals,” he stated whereas in Turkey for the annual NATO summit.
However simply over three weeks in the past, Trump was praising Iran’s leaders as “very good” and “far much less radicalized” than their earlier leaders.
“What occurred there?” Raddatz pressed.
“Effectively, I will simply use the president’s personal phrases. He acquired to know them,” Waltz stated. It is a regime that’s extremely tough to cope with.”
However Waltz stated the White Home hasn’t given up on negotiations.
“This regime can’t have a nuclear weapon. And people specialists by way of what to do with their extremely enriched uranium, with their enrichment program, with the websites that we hit in Midnight Hammer, they’re nonetheless speaking, though the ceasefire has damaged down.”
Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul seems on ABC Information’ “This Week” on July 12, 2026.
ABC Information
In a separate interview, Republican Rep. Michael McCaul praised the president’s resolution to offer Ukraine the appropriate to provide the Patriot air protection system — a complicated system to detect and shoot down missiles and drones — as its conflict with Russia drags on.
“We now have to give you inventive methods to get interceptors in there now,” McCaul stated on “This Week.” “We have to give them a short-term band-aid to repair this downside. They’re profitable within the — within the drone conflict area. The place they’re susceptible, and I skilled this in Kyiv a number of nights, are the fixed bombardments of ballistic missiles, and Putin is aware of they’re susceptible right here, and we have to assist them cease that.”
McCaul was in Ukraine on the finish of the week and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy whereas there. He stated that Zelenskyy desires to finish the conflict, and that it is Russian President Putin who’s standing in the best way.
“The one factor that may finish it’s most strain to get Putin to the negotiating desk. President Zelenskyy informed me simply yesterday he is prepared for a ceasefire; he is prepared to barter. The one man stopping this peace course of is Mr. Putin,” McCaul stated.
