Article 52 of the first additional protocol to the Geneva conventions prohibits attacks on civilian targets. It is on those grounds that the international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for Russian military officers and officials responsible for attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Such assaults, and the missiles rained on Ukrainian cities and towns in order to terrify and demoralise, constitute war crimes. Exactly the same would apply to the United States, should Donald Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back to the “stone age” this week be carried out.
Such basic tenets of international law bear repeating at a time when Mr Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, appear to speak as if from within a bloodthirsty fever dream. Glorying repulsively in his capacity to order death and destruction from the Pentagon, Mr Hegseth, an Evangelical Christian, has presented Operation Epic Fury as a 21st-century crusade “to break the teeth of the ungodly”. On social media at the weekend, Mr Trump topped that by unleashing a stream of expletive-ridden abuse, ranting that unless Iran reopens the strait of Hormuz to shipping, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day … Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”.
