Retired military officers call Trump’s threats against Iran ‘likely war crimes’ | Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s threats on Tuesday morning that “an entire civilization will die tonight and never be brought back” in Iran sparked alarm among military observers and retired officers, who called them “possible war crimes.”
“I have to hope this is a fuss and a negotiating tactic on his part,” said Michael Smith, a retired admiral in the U.S. Navy who commanded a carrier strike group. “He must understand that such threats are probably war crimes.”
Trump’s post on Truth Social comes on the heels of a profane tirade over the weekend in which he referred to the Iranian regime as “crazy bastards” and demanded that it stop blocking oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Trump threatened to bomb infrastructure in Iran if his demands are not met.
“While his previous comments about bridges and power plants may have military utility that would make him a legitimate target, his current allegations have no legal basis,” Smith said. “Still, we must have faith that current military leaders will do what is legal.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said he was “not at all” worried about possible war crimes and threatened to once again destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran does not meet a deadline to reopen the strait on Tuesday. He also declined to say whether civilian targets were off-limits.
Congress is gradually giving up its prerogative to declare war and direct military spending, said Gary Corn, a retired army staff attorney who teaches national security law and the law of armed conflict at American University Washington School of Law and directs the technology, law and security program for the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
“When efforts in Congress fail, it can be interpreted as tacit consent, if not approval, of what has happened in the last 30 days,” he said.
The House and Senate narrowly rejected measures requiring Congressional approval for military operations against Iran in early March. Corn noted that Richard Nixon effectively ignored the repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and continued to wage war in Vietnam 55 years ago.
Retired army general Shawn Harris, who is running for Congress as a Democrat in the Georgia seat formerly held by Marjorie Taylor Greene, said the threat to destroy a “civilization” in one day implies the use of nuclear weapons, even if the word is not used. The second round of the election is on Tuesday.
The firing of three generals by defense secretary Pete Hegseth last week suggests that senior military leaders may have been pushing internally against Trump’s war plans. None of the fired police officers have made public statements since their mandatory retirement.
It’s become difficult to separate Trump’s bluster from business, Harris said: “I think what he’s basically saying is that he’s going to implement the plans that he talked about two or three days ago about blowing up bridges, blowing up energy facilities, things like that. I hope we can come to a diplomatic agreement, but you know the Iranians, they’re not easily persuaded.”
Naveed Shah, political director of the left-leaning veterans group Common Defense, called Trump’s bluster “mindless.”
“I know we’ve gotten used to Trump’s locker room talk, but even the most jaded must admit that his latest plan today is unbalanced,” Shah said. “As a veteran who served in Iraq, such rhetoric puts our soldiers in the region in greater danger. If we do not reduce tensions, we will be dragged into another forever war in the Middle East that we cannot afford.”
Democratic members of Congress expressed concern about Trump’s comments.
“Targeting civilians en masse would be a clear violation of the laws of armed conflict as set out in the Geneva conventions and the Pentagon’s Laws of War Manual,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan and former defense official whom Trump unsuccessfully targeted for prosecution last year after releasing a video urging soldiers to refuse illegal orders.
“This type of focus on civilians is exactly what we accuse our enemies of doing and what our military trains must avoid. It is part of the rigorous drills and routines that our military has been trained to do from their first weeks. If they are today or have been asked to do things that violate the law and their training, it puts them in very real legal jeopardy.”
