Trump threatens war crimes in Iran: "An entire civilization will die tonight"

WashingtonDonald Trump's ultimatum to unleash "hell" on Iran has entered overtime. Although the United States has been bombing bridges and power plants for days, the president has redoubled his threats to commit war crimes with a massive attack on civilian targets. "An entire civilization will die tonight, beyond recovery. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will," he wrote this Tuesday in a message to Truth Social, in which he assured that "47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end." This is said by the president of a country that has only existed for 250 years, compared to the more than 2,000 years of Persian history.

purgués the highest responsible for the army: General Randy George. In response, Iran has cut direct communications with the United States, but talks through third countries have continued. Four hours before the deadline, Pakistan has thrown Trump a lifeline so he can get out of the stalemate he has gotten himself into. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on X that talks to reach an agreement are advancing "steadily, firmly, and decisively, with the potential to lead to substantial results in the near future." This is why Sharif is asking the US president to postpone his attack while also asking the ayatollahs to "reopen the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks as a sign of goodwill." The move offers a dignified withdrawal from the standoff between Washington and Tehran.

Iranian and US sources have confirmed to Reuters that they are considering the idea. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt says Trump "will respond" in the coming hours. However, this is a three-way war: Israel has not been mentioned in the X message published by Sharif. This morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was celebrating the latest bombings carried out by his army on Iranian bridges and railway lines.

Speculation about what this threat to destroy an entire civilization will mean has been fueled by the US administration itself. The escalation, moreover, comes just days after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, purged the highest-ranking official in the army: General Randy George. Dismissals in wartime are extremely rare. Vice President JD Vance, from an event in Hungary, reminded Iranians today that "they [Iranians] must know that we have many tools and that we have not yet decided which one we will use." In parallel, the White House has publicly denied that these "tools" involve any use of nuclear weapons. The US is not the only country with nuclear weapons; Israel also has them, and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been employing rhetoric very similar to that of his partner.

Concern among military commanders

Although Trump will not be the first US president to commit war crimes, he is indeed the first to have explicitly shown himself open to doing so. On Monday, in the grandiloquent press conference where he recounted the rescue of a US pilot, the president acknowledged that he is not "concerned at all" about committing war crimes if, after the deadline he has set, the ayatollah regime has not reached an agreement with the US and has reopened the Strait of Hormuz. Attacking civilian infrastructure is considered a war crime according to the Geneva Convention. Internally, Pentagon legal experts are already looking for new targets that can justify having a military use as well to try to cover themselves, according to Politico. But the generals' concern does not seem to be the same as Trump's.

The Republican's repeated threats in recent days with a clear will and awareness of inflicting harm on the civilian population are hard to overlook. Yesterday, Trump also claimed that Iranians would be "willing to suffer" the hell he has threatened them with if this ultimately ensures their freedom. Previously, via Truth Social, the Republican had also insisted that the US would hit "every single power plant in the country" and would also "blow up" the desalination plants. These infrastructures are vital to guarantee water to the more than 90 million people living in the country, and their destruction would entail enormous collective punishment.

"These rhetorical declarations —if carried out— would amount to the most serious war crimes, and therefore the president's statements put government members in a profoundly difficult situation," wrote two former officers of the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG), Margaret Donovan and Rachel Van Landingham, on the Just Security website. War crimes would not only fall on the commander-in-chief, i.e. Trump, but also on all members of the chain of command who contribute to their execution. Since the Nuremberg trials, obeying orders is no longer an excuse to escape responsibility.

The litany of recorded publications and statements is quite explicit in demonstrating intent to punish, according to former JAG officers. Both Trump's assertion of returning Iran to "the stone age" and that of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, to "give no quarter, nor show mercy," are not only "clearly illegal" but also represent a break from the moral and legal principles with which military personnel have been "trained to follow throughout their entire careers."

Netanyahu, who is already being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, also pointed in the same direction as his allies. This morning he assured that Israel is crushing the Iranian regime with force and said they had already attacked key infrastructure, such as train lines. Nevertheless, the Israeli has stressed that these war actions are not directed against the civilian population but that the exclusive objective is to weaken the military apparatus.

"This is not what we voted for"

Trump's statements about destroying a millennia-old civilization have also caused horror among MAGA ranks and the American far-right. Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who broke with the tycoon over the Epstein case, has completely condemned the president's threat, “Not a single bomb has fallen on the United States. We cannot annihilate an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” she wrote on X. She also called for the invocation of the 25th Amendment of the United States Constitution to remove Trump from the presidency. Podcaster Alex Jones, one of the main references of conspiracism within Trumpism, has also rebelled against the tycoon's words. “Trump sounds like a Marvel supervillain. This is not what we voted for,” he concluded on X. Democratic Party lawmakers have also called for the invocation of the 25th Amendment in recent days, while condemning Trump's threats to destroy bridges, power plants, and other civilian infrastructure in Iran, actions that would amount to war crimes.