Trump’s Truth Social post is yet another extraordinary scaling up of rhetoric to a level previously unthinkable from a president of the United States, in at least the post-World War Two era.
Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department, says of Trump’s post: “This threat against a ‘whole civilization’ could plausibly be interpreted as a threat of genocide.
“Trump may hope this puts pressure on Tehran to reach a deal. But the risk of further US escalation against Iran is very real.”
The US is a signatory to the 1948 Convention on Genocide, which binds the contracting parties “to prevent and to punish” the crime of genocide, defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
I asked the US State Department if the post was a threat of genocide, to which a spokesperson said: “That is not what the president said and you should go read his statement again. President Trump was clear: 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end.”
Trump’s post says if Iran doesn’t do a deal, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”, before going on to say he hopes it won’t happen, but it “probably will”.
His rhetoric could be seen as a negotiating tactic, with some arguing previously it shouldn’t necessarily be taken literally.
The administration has repeatedly said his objective is to prevent Iran’s leadership developing a nuclear weapon, an issue over which Trump has abandoned diplomacy in favour of military force several times.
But even if it’s a bluff, the rhetoric will raise even more concerns about the potential erosion of international norms on warfare, as we’ve written about here.