In declaring that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” President Donald Trump issued a genocidal threat against Iran.
The president posted his message on social media early Tuesday morning, saying that the world “will find out tonight” what happens if Iran fails to meet his 8 p.m. ET deadline for a ceasefire.
Now, the world waits to see if the president of the United States will follow through and commit war crimes by bombing civilian infrastructure across Iran, thrusting the U.S. into the role of international supervillain.
“Earlier we had threats that would amount to war crimes if committed, and now this morning we have a threat to commit what would plausibly be considered genocide,” said Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and former human rights lawyer at the State Department.
As the economic crisis caused by Trump’s war of choice in Iran grew, Trump has made increasingly bombastic threats. On March 21, he promised to “obliterate their various POWER PLANTS,” if Iran did not open the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the world’s oil transits, in 48 hours. He then delayed this action for 10 days, citing “productive” conversations, something that Iran denied. Ten days later, Trump delayed his promised bombing campaign again, but, on April 1, vowed to “[blast] Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
On Sunday, Trump set up the Tuesday deadline with his most bellicose and unhinged threat to date. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
But with Tuesday’s post, he went a step further than even he has ever done before by framing his attacks in genocidal terms.
Alex Brandon via Associated Press
“I take the statements as a desire to wipe out the Iranian regime, regardless of who or what else goes with it, and a demonstrated disregard for international law,” Pardiss Kebriaei, a human rights lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said over email. “But those aren’t the rules. You can’t kill civilians at any cost, or the lifelines they depend on, even if you’re achieving your military goals.”
The United Nations Genocide Convention, adopted by the U.N. in 1948 and codified in U.S. law in 1988, states that genocide includes actions “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” that includes “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The destruction of civilian infrastructure like power and desalination plants with the intent to kill “a whole civilization, never to be brought back again,” may well fall under this definition.
When the U.S. codified the genocide convention into law, the Senate included some reservations, understandings and declarations. One of those understandings was that the deliberate “inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” requires “specific intent” and that “acts committed in the course of armed conflicts committed without specific intent … are not sufficient to constitute genocide.”
“That’s a high bar but [Trump’s] statement, if acted upon, would meet it,” Rebecca Ingber, an international law expert at Cardozo School of Law, said over email. “Intentionally targeting ‘all’ civilian infrastructure or civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities would also constitute war crimes. These are codified in U.S. statute and create criminal liability under U.S. law.”
In other words, Trump’s social media post could serve as Exhibit A that the targeting of Iranian civilian infrastructure came with a specific intent to destroy, as he put it, a “whole civilization” if Trump or anyone who carried out his orders is ever brought before a court.
“War crimes can be prosecuted anywhere under the principle of universal jurisdiction, even if there is no territorial link,” Kebriaei said. “Often it’s lower-level officers carrying out orders who bear the brunt of accountability that comes. So threatening indiscriminate attacks puts everyone at risk, civilians and the military alike.”
Alex Brandon via Associated Press
Trump’s Tuesday social media post is not his only statement that hints at a genocidal intent. On Monday, when a reporter asked how bombing civilian infrastructure could not constitute a war crime, Trump simply replied, “They’re animals.”
This dehumanizing rhetoric, which Trump revels in for all of his disfavored groups, from immigrants to Democrats, is characteristic of previous campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The genocides committed in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia all featured language that labeled the targeted group as insects, a disease or not-real people who must be removed one way or another.
The same is true of rhetoric from U.S. ally Israel, which has been accused of a genocide of its own in its war on Gaza. Israel is also a key player in the war on Iran, which backs the military and political group Hezbollah, one of Israel’s foes in the region. One of the most consistent explanations that U.S. officials have given for launching the Iran war in the first place was simply that it was prompted by Israel.
Israeli officials’ rhetoric in the Gaza War has included suggestions that there are no such things as innocent civilians in the territory. “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said of Gaza shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. “This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved — it’s not true.”
Herzog later said his words were misconstrued and that Israel abides by international law.
Trump has, so far, not gone through with his threats. They may very well be part of a desperate negotiating strategy to get Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz to all tanker traffic.
“The only way out of this mess is going to be a negotiated arrangement,” Finucane said. “I don’t think that widespread destruction of Iranian infrastructure is going to compel Tehran into reaching a deal.”
But even if he kicks the can again and delays this action, his statements and threats of committing genocide mark a moral stain on the United States.
Yes, the U.S. has committed war crimes and atrocities across history, but presidents have not publicly stated their intention to do so. The actual public endorsement of these acts is not Trump bravely pulling back the curtain on the reality of U.S. foreign policy. It is an embrace of those atrocities — past, present and future — that turns the country into a rogue state and a villain on the world stage.
In this way, the civilization that would die, if Trump’s words are acted upon, is our own.