https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war-crimes.htmlPresident Trump’s threat on Tuesday to wipe out Iran’s entire civilization escalated days of bellicose rhetoric in which he has made what appear to be self-incriminating statements about an intent to commit war crimes if the Iranian government does not submit to his demands.“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, adding: “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”For days, Mr. Trump had vowed to order the U.S. military to systematically destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if its government did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers. The laws of war forbid the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure as a means of coercing a government.While it can sometimes be lawful to attack a specific civilian object if it offered a military advantage, an order to indiscriminately destroy all of a country’s bridges and power plants would be illegal and place military commanders in an untenable position, said Geoffrey S. Corn, who was the Army’s senior legal adviser on law-of-war issues and now teaches at Texas Tech Law School.“I think this is the ultimate stress test not just for the JAG corps but even more so for the commanders with stars on their shoulders,” he said, referring to judge advocates general. “This is the moment where their oath necessitates them having the moral courage and the professional honor to say, ‘I’ve looked at this, I’ve done the analysis, I’m leaning forward in the foxhole, but this is not a lawful target.’”
In a statement, Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, did not directly respond to questions about whether Mr. Trump would be committing war crimes. She instead recited human rights abuses by the Iranian government and said “the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing.”“The president will always stand with innocent civilians while annihilating the terrorists responsible for threatening our country and the entire world with a nuclear weapon,” she said. “Greater destruction can be avoided if the regime understands the seriousness of this moment and makes a deal with the United States.”The United States has portrayed Russia’s targeting of civilian energy infrastructure in Ukraine as a war crime. In 2023, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ordered the U.S. government to share evidence with the International Criminal Court that included intelligence about decisions by Russian officials to deliberately strike civilian infrastructure.In January, Mr. Trump’s own ambassador to the United Nations condemned “Russia’s continuing and intensifying attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities and other civil infrastructure.”Asked on Monday whether he was concerned what he was threatening amounted to a war crime, Mr. Trump delivered an unequivocal response: “No, I’m not.”Some top aides to Mr. Trump have reportedly offered rationales that he could lawfully deem as military targets all of Iran’s bridges and power plants. During the 2024 election cycle, Mr. Trump’s team openly promised to hire only lawyers who would approve as lawful whatever he wanted.But if there was any room left for reasonable ambiguity, Mr. Trump further reduced it early Tuesday, threatening that if the Iranian government did not concede and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he would have the U.S. military annihilate Iran’s whole civilization.
For war crimes, as with most criminal offenses, establishing subjective intent matters. For example, if a combatant intends to hit a legitimate military objective but kills a civilian bystander by mistake or as incidental collateral damage, that is generally not a war crime. But it is unlawful to intentionally target a civilian or civilian object that has no military value, or when the harm to civilians is disproportionate to the military advantage gained.In a ruling in January 2024 concerning allegations by South Africa that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the International Court of Justice looked to threatening and dehumanizing public statements by senior Israeli officials as evidence of the intent behind Israeli actions.The court, in finding a plausible basis to conclude that Israel was violating the Genocide Convention and issuing provisional orders to protect civilians, cited statements by officials like Yoav Gallant, then Israel’s defense minister. In October 2023, he announced that “no electricity, no food, no fuel” would enter Gaza and told Israeli troops that he had “released all restraints” because they were “fighting human animals.”On Monday, asked how striking Iran’s bridges and power plants would not be a war crime, Mr. Trump cited the deaths of tens of thousands of protesters at the hands of the Iranian government. He added: “They kill protesters. They’re animals. And we have to stop them and we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”Harold Hongju Koh, a former top State Department lawyer in the Obama and Biden administrations who teaches international law at Yale Law School, said it was also a war crime to make threats for the purpose of terrorizing a civilian population. The move, he added, also undercuts the United States’ stated hope that Iranians will rise up against the government.
Accountability could be difficult. As a matter of domestic law, the Supreme Court has granted Mr. Trump presumptive immunity from prosecution for official actions, and he could issue blanket pardons to subordinates before leaving office. If his appointees at the Justice Department have produced secret memos approving systematic attacks on civilian infrastructure, it would be difficult later to prosecute officials who relied on them, even if a future administration rescinds them as wrong.As a matter of international law, the United States and Iran are not parties to the treaty that created the International Criminal Court at The Hague, the main forum for prosecuting people who committed war crimes. The International Court of Justice, which is also at The Hague, adjudicates whether countries have broken laws, issues orders and relies on the United Nations Security Council — where the United States has veto power — to enforce them.Still, Professor Koh noted that court systems in some European countries have asserted universal jurisdiction for prosecuting war crimes, which could make it risky for American officials who are accused of committing them to travel abroad.Mr. Trump has not been alone in his aggressive messages about the war in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly boasted of having the military push boundaries of lethality, saying that he dialed down the rules of engagement — targeting limits meant to reduce risks of mistakes and civilian casualties — to a minimum.Such statements came under heightened scrutiny after preliminary evidence showed the United States most likely bombed an elementary school in the opening hours of the war — killing about 175 civilians, most of them children, according to Iranian officials.
Parrying queries about the matter, Mr. Hegseth has insisted that the U.S. military does not deliberately target civilians. His rebuttal evades the question of how strict or lax the rules and practices are in his Pentagon for identifying and verifying the nature of targets.Even so, Mr. Trump’s subsequent threats to destroy civilian infrastructure and eradicate Iran’s civilization are incompatible with Mr. Hegseth’s talking point.Mr. Hegseth has also said the United States military will grant “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in the Iran war. Granting quarter means accepting enemies’ offers to surrender and taking them prisoner, rather than slaughtering them. Under the Hague Convention, it is a war crime for a military leader to declare that no quarter will be given in combat, a move the Pentagon’s law-of-war manual also says is “forbidden.”“This means that it is prohibited to order that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed,” the manual says. “Moreover, it is also prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter.”Even before the Iran war, tensions have been building over whether Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth have given the military illegal orders to attack civilians or civilian objects.Last fall, the administration directed the military to summarily kill people suspected of smuggling drugs at sea, a policy a broad range of experts in laws governing the use of force have called illegal and murder. The military is not allowed to target civilians who pose no imminent threat of violence, and being suspected of a crime does not forfeit civilian status. But a Trump-appointed lawyer, in a secret memo, asserted that the policy was lawful based on accepting Mr. Trump’s claim that the nation is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and gangs.
In November, six Democratic lawmakers who are military or intelligence community veterans released a video reminding service members that they are obligated not to follow illegal orders.The message enraged Mr. Trump, who accused the Democrats of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”Mr. Hegseth tried to punish one, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut, by reducing his rank or opening a court-martial proceeding, but a federal judge has blocked him from doing so. Jeanine Pirro, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington, tried to indict the lawmakers under a statute that forbids interfering with the loyalty, morale or discipline of the armed forces, but a grand jury rejected the charges.___
relatedhttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/retired-us-brigadier-general-steve-anderson-nuremberg-trials-trump-iran-threat-war-crime_n_69d5226de4b06b69686cda42
My kingdumb for a sord
>>1504478robot islamic shia
Can they impeach him before he eventually threatens someone who won’t wait to see if he’s still lying?
>>1504529impeachment requires congress actually does something
>>1504478Oh look, another TDS thread.
>>1504531>stop reporting on my role modellol
>>1504529stop acting like there’s hope
>>1504531Don’t listen to the TDS shills, brother. Perpetual war in the Middle East is a good thing because it makes the warmongering Dems seethe
>>1504531>>1504537>The pedophile defense team from Epstein's board, /pol/ has entered the thread
>>1504532>>1504538>waaahhh wahhh orange man bad waaaaah waaaahhh
>>1504541>The pedophiles are seething this hard trump lostAgain
>>1504542>says the anon seething because Republicans won't die, despite all their efforts
>>1504541>orange man badYes. Obviously.
>>1504566Lets have another 20 threads where you express how much you hate Trump. I don't think /news/ has enough whining and bitching faggots.
>>1504574is your safe space being invaded by reality, esl shill? aww
>>1504574>Lets have another 20 threads where you express how much you hate TrumpSure, we'll file them next to the 20 threads where you suck a billionaire's dick.
>>1504575It's actually the other way around. I'm coming off another three-day ban because you redditors are upset with the slurs I made. So this would be me invading your safe space. Now go cry to another mod again about how much I hurt your subhuman feelings.>>1504576I can't wait to see 20 more threads full of you crying faggots upset because Trump won the election again.
>>1504577>I can't wait to see 20 more threads full of you crying faggots upset because Trump won the election again.Keep gargling billionaire balls, anon. I'm sure some day daddy Trump will reward you with the honor of licking his shoes.
Just goes to show you so long as Americans don't go hungry, living under a dictatorship is fine by them. A little inflation at the gas pump and their neighbours getting sent off to die in cages is fine by them. So long as they aren't the ones suffering.
>>1504577MAGA are noting but soulless grifters and cultists. And Republicans are nothing but rage baiters. Nothing about the ring wing stand for anything anymore, except for owning da libs. No plan on how to make things better. No discussion on how to work with liberals to come to the table on improvements. Just throwing up their hands, and whatever Orange Juilius shit posts that day is law.
>>1504579I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of you monkeys getting shot by ICE.
>>1504581>he said while throwing another molotov into a minority-owned small business to get back at the police for being racist
>>1504583>Deflecting instead of answeringTypical rightoid, and their inability to be accountable for their actions. Especially now with them controlling every branch of government.
>>1504585You sound like a self-important boomer giving unsolicited opinions about American politics.
>>1504585>waah waahhh repubs are soulless grifters and hypocrites>now watch as I throw this sick molotov
>>1504589>Lemme keep pivoting instead of answering>>1504588I'm a millennial.
>>1504590>>Lemme keep pivoting instead of answering>dumb faggot didn't ask a questionLMAO
>>1504591>>1504589>>1504588The pedophiles are really upset tonight. Is it because trump threatened the pope, or it's finally sunk in that he got played as a sucker by the Iranians?Or the epstein list, no one's forgotten that he raped kids and is still covering it up.
>>1504592>He still didn't ask a question>REEEEEE WHY DO YOU KEEP PIVOTING INSTEAD OF ANSWERING THE QUESTION I DIDN'T ASKLeftists confirmed mentally ill and should have voting rights taken away.
>>1504592Some are just now coming to the realization they've been conned. Others like >>1504593 are still in denial and lashing out.
>>1504603Still waiting on a question, faggot.
>>1504606No one cares, cultist.
>>1504607Likewise, leftist.
>>1504593Don't care about your crying, pedophile. You could go back to your home board that Epstein created for you, /pol/.
>>1504616Epstein did not create /pol/
>>1504617Cope harder pedophile.
>>1504608Anyone who still supports Liar Trump at this stage deserves to be treated like a raving lunatic on a street corner yelling to himself. It isn't any wonder why no one wants to engage with your fallacies. You might have better luck yelling at the lib bots on twitter.
>>1504616>waaaaah gb2/pol/ if you're not going to make 50,000 Trump bad threads on nuReddit>>1504624Anyone who supports democrats deserves to be shot.
>>1504618Shut up idiot. /pol/ was created as a containment board because stormfront racist fucks had colonised 4chan
>>1504626>Israeli posters
>>1504617But /pol/ was previously removed, then Epstein ensured it was reinstated
>>1504581This is full of shit, there are literal Democrats passing laws in hard-blue states demanding the age verification of everyone so they can identify more children under the age of 18 to rape on whatever has replaced Epstein island.Done at the behest of literally Zuckerberg, the CEO of facebook, who got Con Don elected in the first place with Cambridge Analytica data from his users.Your party is crooked and the other party is sucking israeli dick, but both of you are pedophiles who serve the rich.
>>1504642And here is the link if you decide this isn't good enough since you always dohttps://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findingsSo just go QQ about muh pedos muh epstein to a party who hasn't taken AIPAC money in the last 20 years hint there are none
>>1504642>>1504643>twisting reality to fit your ideological agenda>githubGo back to twitter
>>1504637Shut up
>>1504635>leftists hate jews more than /pol/
>>1504580what americans despise the most is their fellow countrymen
>blag blag i'm getting dRumpfwe know.
>>1504627>Still pushing this lie after we found out the truth /pol/ was actually created by EpsteinYou pedophiles never give up, do you?
