Is Trump’s threat to blow up Iran’s infrastructure a war crime? Experts weigh in
In his news conference Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to blow up every bridge and power plant in Iran, action that would be so far-reaching that some experts in military law said it could constitute a war crime.
The issue could turn on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, whether the attacks were proportional compared with what Iran has done and whether civilian casualties were minimized.
Trump’s threat was so broad it did not seem to account for the harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law.
The president’s eventual actions often fall short of his all-encompassing rhetoric in the moment, but his warnings about the power plants and bridges were unambiguous both on Sunday and Monday as he set a deadline of Tuesday night for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that attacking such infrastructure is banned under international law.
“Even if specific civilian infrastructure were to qualify as a military objective,” Stephane Dujarric said, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm.”
Rachel VanLandingham, a Southwestern Law School professor who served as a judge advocate general in the U.S. Air Force, said civilians are likely to die if power is cut to hospitals and water treatment plans.
“What Trump is saying is, ‘We don’t care about precision, we don’t care about impact on civilians, we’re just going to take out all of Iranian power generating capacity,'” the retired lieutenant colonel said.
Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, has been all but halted, sending oil prices soaring and roiling the stock market.
Trump said Monday that he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes as he continues to threaten destruction. He also warned that every power plant will be “burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
“I hope I don’t have to do it,” Trump added.
When asked for further comment Monday, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing.”
“The Iranian regime has committed egregious human rights abuses against its own citizens for 47 years, just murdered tens of thousands of protestors in January, and has indiscriminately targeted civilians across the region in order to cause as much death as possible throughout this conflict,” Kelly wrote in an email.
‘Clearly a threat of unlawful action’
As the conflict has entered its second month, Trump has escalated his warnings to bomb Iran’s infrastructure, including Kharg Island, central to Iran’s oil industry, and desalination plans that provide drinking water.
In a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned that the U.S. would obliterate “all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.'”
On Easter Sunday, Trump threatened in an expletive-laden post that Iran will face “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” while adding that “you’ll be living in Hell” unless the strait reopens.
“This strikes me as clearly a threat of unlawful action,” said Michael Schmitt, a professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College and an international law professor at the University of Reading in Britain.
A power facility can be attacked under the laws of armed conflict if it provides electricity to a military base in addition to civilians, Schmitt said. But the strike must not “cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population, and you’ve done everything to minimize that harm.”
Harm does not include inconvenience or fear, said Schmitt, who has taught military commanders. But it does mean severe mental suffering, physical injury or illness.
Schmitt said military commanders should consider alternatives, such as targeting a substation or transmission lines that feed electricity to a base, before destroying an entire power plant.
“If you look at the operation and you’ve got a valid military objective, but it’s going to cause harm to civilians and you go, ‘Whoa, that’s a lot,’ then you should stop,” Schmitt said. “If you hesitate to take the shot, don’t take the shot.”
‘He’s using that leverage’
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Monday that Trump is “absolutely not” threatening a war crime when he said he might bomb civilian infrastructure.
The infrastructure is also used by the military, Ernst said, and “it’s an ongoing operation.”
“If he needs leverage, he’s using that leverage,” she said while presiding over a brief pro forma session of the Senate.
But Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, also in the Capitol for the brief session, said it would be a “textbook war crime.”
“If you target civilian infrastructure for the purposes the president was talking about, it clearly is a war crime,” Van Hollen said.
Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said the question of whether attacks on civilian infrastructure would be considered war crimes would have to be decided by a court.
However, Katherine Thompson, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said any accountability would more likely come from Congress.
She said thinking otherwise would mean believing that the U.S. would allow its president to be held accountable by foreign entities.
“This is the persnickety, inconvenient truth about international law: It only works if sovereign nations are willing to cede their sovereignty to a foreign body for accountability,” she said.
But Congress would have to say the president has gone too far. And then both houses would have to take action and with enough support to overcome a presidential veto, a highly unlikely prospect.
Trump also appears to have broad legal immunity under the Supreme Court’s ruling in the criminal case before his reelection, said VanLandingham. And the president could also grant preemptive pardons to top officials if needed.
‘We’re giving them a gift’
Even if technically justified under the law of war, strikes that bring harm to civilians could backfire for the U.S. long term, VanLandingham said.
“There’s a lot of violence that can still be justified as lawful, but lawful can still be awful,” VanLandingham said. “How far did that get us in Iraq? How far did that get us in Afghanistan? How far did that get us in Vietnam?”
Trump’s rhetoric risks spreading fear among regular Iranians and communicating that the U.S. isn’t worried about their well-being, VanLandingham said. The country’s leaders could use it as propaganda to create and harden opposition, contributing to a longer, tougher war.
Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Edith M. Lederer in New York and Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.
—Ben Finley, Lindsay Whitehurst and Gary Fields, Associated Press