Trump’s recent comments about Iran — including warnings of broad destruction of infrastructure — have prompted questions from international-law experts about whether such actions, if carried out, could breach the rules governing armed conflict.
In a Monday news conference, Trump threatened to blow up every bridge and power plant in Iran, a scale of destruction that prompted concern among some military-law experts about whether civilian harm could be excessive and whether such strikes would be lawful under international rules. The AP reported that the threat did not appear to account for harm to civilians, and that Democrats in Congress, some U.N. officials and scholars in military law said strikes on that basis would violate international law.
Trump, who also linked the rhetoric to a deadline for Iran, set Tuesday night as the time by which Iran would need to open the Strait of Hormuz. The comments included warnings that every power plant would be “burning, exploding and never to be used again,” and the AP said the president had issued similarly unambiguous warnings on Sunday and Monday while pursuing that deadline.
The legal scrutiny extends beyond the bridges-and-power infrastructure language, according to the AP report. It said Trump also warned in a Tuesday morning Truth Social post that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” adding that he did not want that outcome but believed it “probably will.” Afterward, the AP said Trump pulled back on that threat late Tuesday, and Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it accepted a two-week ceasefire.
U.N. officials and outside experts focused on how international law treats attacks on infrastructure. Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, warned on Monday that attacking such infrastructure is banned under international law, the AP reported. Dujarric said that even if specific civilian infrastructure could qualify as a military objective, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm.”
Rachel VanLandingham, a Southwestern Law School professor and retired U.S. Air Force judge advocate general, told AP that civilians are likely to die if power is cut to hospitals and water treatment facilities. She characterized the substance of Trump’s threats as a willingness to remove “all of Iranian power generating capacity,” without care for “precision” or the impact on civilians.
Under the U.N. Charter framework, nations generally may use force against another state only if authorized by the Security Council or in self-defense, AP reported Marieke de Hoon as saying. As the conflict entered its second month, Trump’s escalated warnings included threats to bomb infrastructure tied to Iran’s oil industry, including Kharg Island, and desalination plants used to provide drinking water.
The AP also reported that in a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned 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 issued another expletive-laden post, warning Iran would face “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” and saying people would be “living in Hell” unless the strait reopens.
Michael Schmitt, a professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College and an international law professor at the University of Reading in Britain, told AP that the threats “strikes me as clearly a threat of unlawful action.” Schmitt said a power facility can be attacked under laws of armed conflict if it provides electricity to a military base in addition to civilians, but he said such strikes must not “cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population, and you’ve done everything to minimize that harm.”
In describing what harm means under the laws of armed conflict, Schmitt told AP that harm does not include mere inconvenience or fear, but it does include severe mental suffering as well as physical injury or illness. The AP report also described how shipping in the Strait of Hormuz had been “all but halted,” sending oil prices soaring and roiling markets.
In separate comments last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told AP there would be “no stupid rules of engagement,” and that the United States would “fight to win” and not waste time or lives. The AP report said Trump’s eventual actions often fell short of his sweeping rhetoric at the moment, but noted that his warnings about power plants and bridges were clear as he set the Tuesday-night deadline for the Strait’s reopening.