Waltz says ceasefire 'broken down' after US and Iran trade fire

After the U.S. military launched strikes against Iran for the third time in less than a week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Sunday that "all options are on the table," saying that Iran "is not living up to" the preliminary agreement negotiators reached in June.

"Regardless of whether you're party to some conflict, you cannot start shooting in all directions, attacking your neighbors, attacking civilian shipping, civilian infrastructure, throwing mines in international waterways, and acting like the irresponsible genocidal regime that many have always accused it of being," Waltz said in an interview with ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz.

"The world stands with the United States that this is unacceptable behavior, and the president ... has always said this was a performance-based MOU (memorandum of understanding)," Waltz added. "Iran is not living up to it, and all options are on the table."

Overnight Saturday, U.S. Central Command announced it had launched another round of strikes after Iran attacked another commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately 140 Iranian targets were hit inn those strikes, per CENTCOM, bringing the total targets hit over the three nights to more than 300.

On Saturday night, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz was closed, an apparent violation of the memo of understanding previously signed by the U.S. and Iran. But Iran has accused the United States of violating the ceasefire terms

In a statement, Iran's navy said ships were fired on after they "attempted to move along the unapproved route and ignored our warnings and reminders to correct the route."

"The consequences of such an intervention are the responsibility of the American-Zionist enemy and the countries that have made their soil available to the enemy base for these threats," The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy's statement said.

On Sunday morning, CENTCOM said the waterway was open and that "traffic is flowing." The reality remains unclear.

"I think Iran is still very much of the mindset that it can use the global economy as some type of leverage," Waltz said. "We've said here at the United Nations, 143 nations have stood together and said what Iran is doing is in violation of international law."

Iranian strikes on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz prompted earlier U.S. strikes this week. In a background call with reporters Friday, senior U.S. officials said that the Iranians said privately "that the firing on ships was from an errant system, an errant part of their system that was trying to undermine the deal."

"If that is to be believed, then where is the discipline?," Waltz said. "We're supposed to believe that some junior officers are going rogue and firing on ships, but yet face no consequences from a dictatorial hierarchy-based entity like the IRGC?"

He concluded: "I don't buy it. I don't think we buy it. And at the end of the day, where's the discipline and the public apology if that's the case? And that's simply what the president and his team asked for."

On Wednesday, Trump said that in his view, the ceasefire with Iran is "over."

"I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people," he said while in Turkey for the annual NATO summit.

But just over three weeks ago, Trump was praising Iran's leaders as "very smart" and "far less radicalized" than their previous leaders.

"What happened there?" Raddatz pressed.

"Well, I'll just use the president's own words. He got to know them," Waltz said. This is a regime that is incredibly difficult to deal with."

But Waltz said the White House hasn't given up on negotiations.

"This regime cannot have a nuclear weapon. And those experts in terms of what to do with their highly enriched uranium, with their enrichment program, with the sites that we hit in Midnight Hammer, they are still talking, even though the ceasefire has broken down."

In a separate interview, Republican Rep. Michael McCaul praised the president's decision to give Ukraine the right to produce the Patriot air defense system -- an advanced system to detect and shoot down missiles and drones -- as its war with Russia drags on.

"We have to come up with creative ways to get interceptors in there now," McCaul said on "This Week." "We need to give them a short-term band-aid to fix this problem. They're winning in the -- in the drone war space. Where they're vulnerable, and I experienced this in Kyiv several nights, are the constant bombardments of ballistic missiles, and Putin knows they're vulnerable here, and we need to help them stop that."

McCaul was in Ukraine at the end of the week and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while there. He said that Zelenskyy wants to end the war, and that it's Russian President Putin who is standing in the way.

"The only thing that will end it is maximum pressure to get Putin to the negotiating table. President Zelenskyy told me just yesterday he's ready for a ceasefire; he's ready to negotiate. The only man stopping this peace process is Mr. Putin," McCaul said.