Original article by Stephen Prager republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Whether he means it or not, his saying it is an indelible moral stain on our country,” said one law professor.
President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his threat to carry out a genocidal attack on Iran, pledging to “blow up” the “whole country” of over 90 million people and to demolish critical civilian infrastructure if it does not sign a peace deal by Wednesday.
“If they don’t sign the deal, then the whole country is going to get blown up,” Trump said, according to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, who relayed the comments on air Sunday morning.
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Trump also reportedly said that the US was “preparing to hit [Iran] harder than any country has ever been hit before because you cannot let them have a nuclear weapon.”
The comments came after Iran once again closed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday in response to the continued US blockade of Iranian ports, which Iranian officials said violated the terms of the agreement reached between the two countries.
After renewing the blockade, Iranian gunboats fired upon a pair of Indian-flagged ships attempting to travel through the strait Saturday.
In response, Trump issued a furious post on Truth Social Sunday morning, saying that he would send a team of negotiators—Vice President JD Vance, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff—to Islamabad on Monday for another round of negotiations.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” Trump wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
“They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years,” he continued.
It echoed the similarly genocidal threat made by Trump earlier in April that “a whole civilization will die… never to be brought back again,” if Iran did not agree to a deal, which drew worldwide condemnation and sparked efforts by some members of Congress to pursue impeachment or push for Trump’s cabinet to remove him via the 25th Amendment.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/116431297579272777/embed
Trump has appeared eager to end the war with Iran after it caused economic upheaval and pushed his already dire approval rating even lower. But he has also backed Israel when it sought to undermine key points of the agreement, prompting retaliation from Iran.
The ceasefire announced earlier this month between the US and Iran initially included a halt to the hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. But within hours, Israel unleashed its most punishing set of attacks against Lebanon since the war began in March. Trump then backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he claimed that Lebanon was never part of the deal.
Iran only agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz on Friday after Israel and Lebanon appeared to agree to a 10-day ceasefire. But Israel has already violated that agreement several times, continuing to raze Lebanese villages and fire upon people approaching its newly imposed “yellow line.”
In addition to calling for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before he launched the war in late February, Trump has demanded that Iran make a deal to hand over all of its enriched uranium, which he refers to as “nuclear dust.”
A spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said such a proposal would violate Iran’s sovereignty: “Iran’s uranium is Iran’s asset. It is our responsibility, our energy, our sovereign right.”
An end to the attacks against Lebanon has been described as another central demand from Iran, although officials said the decision to close the strait again on Saturday was in response to Trump’s continued blockade of Iranian ports.
International law strictly prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure with no military objective, including bridges and power plants that are critical to human life.
Trump’s previous threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” suggest that the latest threats are less about accomplishing a specific military objective than about inflicting suffering on Iranian society as leverage.
Last time Trump made such a threat, a coalition of more than 200 groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Refugees International, and Oxfam America, wrote in an urgent letter stating that if carried out, such attacks would constitute “a grave atrocity” and that “a threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide.”
Human Rights Watch said that, if acted upon, “the statement could be indicative of criminal intent if Trump were ever prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.
The last time Trump threatened to unleash an apocalyptic attack on Iran, the threat preceded a deal that, at least in principle, involved the US agreeing to negotiate based on a set of terms laid out by the Iranians. This led many observers to characterize the threats as bluster meant to save face before capitulation rather than a sincere pledge to annihilate Iran.
However, Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers and the executive editor at Just Security, said that, “Whether he means it or not, his saying it is an indelible moral stain on our country.”
Original article by Stephen Prager republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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