Cooper Slams Trump’s Threat To Wipe Out Iranian Civilisation

Yvette Cooper has hit out at Donald Trump after the US president threatened to wipe out Iranian civilisation.

Having already warned Iran must agree to end the war earlier this week or risk attacks on civilian infrastructure, the president claimed on Tuesday that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if Tehran did not agree to US demands.

Those genocidal remarks sparked widespread horror.

The government did not respond to the shocking remarks at the time and a subsequent ceasefire deal luckily meant Trump did not escalate any further tensions with Iran.

But on Thursday, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper suggested Trump had gone too far.

She told Sky News: “We take a different view from the US on issues, and it is possible for us to be strong, close partners on a whole range of issues, but also to take different decisions on issues.

“I think that the rhetoric that we’ve seen used, I think, has been completely wrong. I think that sort of escalatory rhetoric can have escalatory consequences.”

She also called for a clear line to be drawn between the Iranian regime and the general population.

She said: “More significantly, we should always distinguish between this malign Iranian regime that we have seen threaten its neighbours over a long time, and the people of Iran, many of whom have been brutally repressed by this Iranian regime.”

The cabinet minister hit out at Israel’s strikes against Lebanon too, which took place after the ceasefire deal was agreed.

She split with the US by saying Britain wants the ceasefire extended to cover Lebanon.

“We’ve seen the mass displacement of civilians in Lebanon with significant humanitarian consequences,” she said.

“This escalation in damaging, it’s wrong… we want the ceasefire extended to cover Lebanon.”

Meanwhile, US vice-president JD Vance insisted it was a “misunderstanding” and that Lebanon had never been part of the US-Israel agreement with Iran.

Cooper’s words come amid a widening gulf between the UK and the US over the Iran war.

Trump has frequently lambasted Britain for not joining in with his offensive, even comparing UK prime minister Keir Starmer to Neville Chamberlain who championed the Nazi appeasement policy before World War 2.

The PM hit back on Wednesday, by suggesting the Iran conflict broke international law and was started with no plan on how to end it.

Starmer said: “I’ve acted as you would expect of a British prime minister, which is by being absolutely focused on what is our national interest, and that’s why I’ve applied my principles and my values throughout.

“And my principles and values made sure that our decisions were that we wouldn’t get involved in the action without a lawful basis, without a viable, thought-through plan.”

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