President Trump said the United States will target “every” Iranian bridge and power plant if Tehran does not open the Strait of Hormuz by his deadline. Experts say such blanket actions could undermine America’s aims in Iran and create legal jeopardy for military leadership.
David Silbey, a professor of history at Cornell University who specializes in military history and defense policy, says it’s difficult to say definitively whether U.S. actions constitute war crimes.
Silbey says: “The treaty that everyone has been citing is the Additional Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention from 1977. The problem is that the U.S. is not a ratified signatory of that protocol and so it’s ambiguous about whether it’s bound by the restrictions. You could certainly make a moral case that it’s a war crime but a legal one would be more difficult.
“The Iranians have not caved in the way President Trump expected and have, in fact, managed to cripple world energy supply lines by cutting off the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Navy has spent decades neglecting its mine-sweeping capabilities and between that and the threat of drones and unmanned vehicles, they can’t risk billion-dollar ships in the Strait to escort the tankers.
“The Iranians feel like they’re winning and that this is actually an opportunity for them to take over the Strait permanently and charge ships an ongoing toll. Trump, who is not a great strategic thinker at the best of times, is now trying to ratchet up the pressure by threatening to go after Iranian infrastructure like power plants and desalinization plants.
“The problem there is that the people who will be hurt by this are the ordinary Iranians, who Trump has been encouraging to overthrow the regime. This is hardly going to get them to do that. It’s the threats and actions of a president who stupidly painted himself deep in a tactical and strategic cul-de-sac and who doesn’t know what to do next.”
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