An overt forewarning of war crimes, ‘Trump's War’ that has discarded both norms and ethics - 경향신문

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A university building in Tehran, Iran, destroyed by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on the 4th (local time). Xinhua-Yonhap

U.S. President Donald Trump said that unless the Strait of Hormuz is opened by 8 p.m. on the 7th (local time), he will blow up civilian facilities in Iranpower plants and bridgesan unabashed ‘preannouncement of war crimes’. This conduct by the Trump administration had already been foreshadowed when it disbanded the ‘Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response’ team within the Ministry of National Defense last year. To package this war, which throws aside both norms and ethics, as a ‘holy war’, the Trump administration has begun using increasingly aggressive religious rhetoric.

Posting on social media that day, President Trump raised the level of threat by saying that if Iran refuses to negotiate, “it will be a day of power plants and a day of bridges,” and that “it will all happen at once. Nothing like this will have precedent.” He was declaring that both power plants and bridges would be blown up. He then added, in a mocking tone, “praise Allah.”

If President Trump’s warning were carried out, it would go down as one of the worst war crimes. Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian that “bombing power plants would cut electricity to hospitals, water supplies, and other essential civilian services, causing enormous harm to the people of Iran.” Erika Guevara-Rosas, a senior director at Amnesty International, also said that “intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure is prohibited under international law,” adding that “the circumstances under which it can be recognized as a military objective are extremely limited, and even then, if the attack would cause excessive harm to civilians, it must not be conducted.”

However, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that aides to President Trump, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are privately telling him that civilian facilities such as power plants and bridges in Iran are all lawful military objectives. They claim that bombing Iranian power infrastructure would neutralize missile and nuclear programs, and that destroying bridges and roads would block the transport of missile and drone components; they are said to call these attacks the ‘Grand Fury 2.0’ operation.

Screengrab of a bridge-blast video that U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on the 2nd (local time). Yonhap News

The Trump administration’s disregard for civilian harm had been foreshadowed when, right after Secretary Hegseth took office, staffing at the special ‘Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response’ (CHMR) unit inside the Ministry of National Defense was cut by 90%. CHMR was created after a U.S. drone strike during the 2022 withdrawal from Afghanistan killed an entire family, including children, to prevent a recurrence.

Made up of roughly 200 personnel, CHMR was tasked with identifying in real time the civilian presence in areas of operation before missions and conducting in-depth risk analysis. It also carried out after-action assessments and proposed remedies when civilian harm was reported. Had Secretary Hegseth not dismantled CHMR, the unit would have intervened to try to prevent the mistaken strike on an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, which killed 175 civilians, as well as the large bridge blast near Tehran on the 2nd that left more than 100 civilian casualties.

Beyond CHMR, Secretary Hegseth also fired, in March of last year, the heads of the judge advocate general offices of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Military lawyers have reviewed and advised on whether operations violate international law. After the 9/11 attacks, as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq repeatedly sparked controversy over civilian deaths, the U.S. Congress even raised the rank of these legal chiefs to lieutenant general so that commanders could not easily disregard their views.

With CHMR and the judge advocates gone, the U.S. Ministry of National Defense has, over the past month or so, carried out the ‘Grand Fury’ operation while violating international law without hesitation. The conflict-monitoring NGO ACLED pointed out that, in order to assassinate Iranian politicians and scientists, U.S. and Israeli forces struck more than 50 residential buildings, in some cases using heavy weapons to destroy entire structures rather than only specific floors. ACLED also reported that, while claiming to hit police stations and Basij militia offices, they bombed densely populated areas even though those facilities had already been vacated or largely relocated.

Defense analysts told ProPublica that civilian casualties can produce worrisome outcomes not only in humanitarian terms but also militarily. Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has noted that “for every one innocent civilian killed, at least ten new enemies are created.”

Mourners dig graves during the funeral for elementary school children killed in the U.S.-Israeli airstrike on an elementary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab on the 3rd (local time). Iranian Red Crescent·UPI-Yonhap News

The Trump administration also ignored the American precedent of launching military operations and humanitarian assistance simultaneously at the start of war. In 2003, before the first strikes on Iraq, the United States prepositioned emergency supplies in warehouses across Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, preparing for the possibility that up to 600,000 refugees would gather along the Iraqi border. At the time, th U.S. Congress approved $2.5 billion in relief funding a few weeks after the invasion at the request of the administration. In the current war, however, the Trump administration has not only failed to provide humanitarian support for refugees inside Iran, but has also turned a blind eye to the global emergency shortage of relief food caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Rather, to rally its base, the Trump administration is attempting to ‘dehumanize’ Iranians, who are Muslims, while packaging this war as a ‘holy war’. Past U.S. administrations during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were extremely cautious with language to avoid the appearance of a ‘religious war’, but the Trump administration is employing religious rhetoric without restraint. On the 25th of last month, Secretary Hegseth held an evangelical service at the Ministry of National Defense and said, “we pray in the name of Jesus Christ to inflict overwhelming violence on those who do not deserve mercy.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Catholic, also attacked religion by referring to Iran as “deranged religious fanatics” in an interview with ABC.

Also on that day, President Trump mocked Islam by appending the words ‘praise Allah’ to his social-media post previewing strikes on Iran. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim organization in the United States, said in a statement that “the casual use of the phrase ‘praise Allah’ in a violent context both weaponizes religious language and reflects a dangerous impulse to demean Islam and its adherents,” adding that “it reveals a mindset that shows indifference to human life and contempt for religious belief.”