Trump’s Iran threats look like self-incrimination for potential war crimes.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House in Washington, April 6, 2026. President Trump, in vowing to systematically destroy civilian infrastructure and annihilate Iran’s entire civilization, appears to be creating evidence about his intentions. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

President Donald Trump’s threat earlier this week 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,” 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.”

Even as Trump dialed back his threat late Tuesday by announcing a two-week ceasefire, he has for days 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 spokesperson, did not directly respond to questions about whether 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 Joe Biden 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, 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 Monday whether he was concerned what he was threatening amounted to a war crime, Trump delivered an unequivocal response: “No, I’m not.”

Some top aides to 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, 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, 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.

On Monday, asked how striking Iran’s bridges and power plants would not be a war crime, 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 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, Koh noted that court systems in some European countries have asserted universal jurisdiction for prosecuting war crimes, which could make it risky for U.S. officials who are accused of committing them to travel abroad.