Trump's Illegalist War Gets Illegaler

TL;DR

Trump's threats to destroy Iran's infrastructure and civilization violate international humanitarian law on distinction, proportionality, and potentially genocide statutes.

Key Points

• 1.Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran's bridges and power plants over the Strait of Hormuz closure. About 20-25% of global oil supply transits the strait; surrounding terrain makes military seizure prohibitively costly, making a ceasefire the practical outcome.
• 2.The ceasefire brokered by Pakistan is legally incoherent with contradictory terms. Iran claimed it covered Israel and Lebanon; Israel denied being party to any deal and continued Hezbollah operations; Iran simultaneously sent drone strikes to Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE.
• 3.Iran's proposed $2 million-per-vessel toll on the Strait of Hormuz violates customary international law. UNCLOS establishes free transit passage through international straits; with ~138 ships per day, Iran would collect hundreds of millions daily — approaching its entire $400B annual GDP in under two years.
• 4.Trump's blanket infrastructure threats fail all three pillars of the law of armed conflict. Distinction requires individual targeting analysis; proportionality bars excessive civilian harm; military necessity prohibits threats of mass civilizational destruction to reopen a commercial shipping route.
• 5.Legal scholars debated whether Trump's 'a whole civilization will die tonight' statement meets the genocide threshold. Under 18 USC §1091, genocide requires specific dolus specialis intent; the ICJ standard demands genocidal intent be the only reasonable inference from conduct — a deliberately high bar rarely met even post-Rwanda.
• 6.Trump then floated a US-Iran toll joint venture on the Strait of Hormuz, constituting what the video calls a legal shakedown. The Vienna Convention Article 52 voids treaties procured by threat of force; sharing proceeds of an illegal toll regime extracted under civilizational threat doesn't launder the coercion.
• 7.Dismissing international humanitarian law as unenforceable carries concrete strategic costs for the US. Reciprocity protects captured US troops' POW rights; adversaries like Putin already cite US Iraq violations to justify Ukraine; every US violation provides precedent authoritarian regimes exploit for decades.