Donald Trump risks turning America into a "rogue state," a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues warned Wednesday after the president threatened to bomb power stations and desalination plants in Iran.
Stephen J. Rapp, who served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues from 2009 to 2015, said he was disturbed by Trump's threats to Iran if it does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree to end the war the United States and Israel launched a month ago.
"It makes us a rogue state," said Rapp, who served as chief of prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 2001 to 2007 and the chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009. He and two other experts in international law who spoke to NBC News said Trump's threats alone could represent a possible war crime.
On Monday, Trump said that if an agreement was not reached and if the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route through which 20% of the world’s oil supply passes, was not immediately reopened, he would destroy civilian energy infrastructure “and possibly all desalinization plants," which he said the U.S. had "purposefully not yet ‘touched.”
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately 'Open for Business,' we will conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched,”” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Tehran has denied progress in talks.
Trump said the attacks would be carried out "in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year 'Reign of Terror'."
The leader, who is expected to address the nation Wednesday night for an update on the war, said Tuesday that the U.S. planned to leave Iran within two or three weeks, with or without a deal, though it was not clear whether he planned to uphold his threat to destroy civilian infrastructure.
On Wednesday, he claimed Iran was seeking a "ceasefire" in the war, which he said the U.S. would consider once Hormuz was reopened. Tehran did not immediately respond to this assertion either.
'Not much question'
To attack desalination plants, upon which millions of people across the Middle East rely for drinking water, Rapp said, "would definitely be a war crime."
“Not much question about that,” he said.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, agreed, adding in separate comments: “Even attacks on power plants are war crimes.”
He noted that Iran has a unified electrical grid, meaning its military uses the same electricity as civilians.
“The harm to civilians ... is clearly disproportionate to any military benefit,” he added.
Under international humanitarian law, civilian sites cannot be made the “object of attack or of reprisals." The only exception is if they are used for military purposes, but attacks must still adhere to the principles of international law.
In his threat, Trump said that such attacks on civilian infrastructure would be carried out as “retribution” for the deaths of U.S. military members, with at least 13 service members killed in the war, while two more have died of noncombat causes.
More than 3,000 people have been killed across the region in the war, with at least 1,900 people estimated killed in Iran under Israeli and American strikes and more than 1,300 killed in Lebanon, while 19 people have died in Israel.
Human rights groups have said that in addition to the U.S., Israel and Iran have committed possible war crimes during the monthlong conflict.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on criticisms of Trump’s threats to target civilian infrastructure in Iran.
During a news conference Tuesday, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to try to downplay Trump’s threats.
Hailing the U.S. military as “the most professional force in the world,” Caine said it had “numerous processes and systems to carefully consider the whole range of considerations, from civilian risk to legal considerations.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt separately said Monday that the U.S. military would always operate within the “confines of the law.”
David J. Scheffer, who served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues and led the American delegation to the United Nations talks for establishing the International Criminal Court, said he wouldn't necessarily call America a "rogue state."
However, the “entire international community” will be watching the conduct of U.S. forces in the Iran war — "and will reach conclusions that could easily identify the United States as a nation that is not complying with international law,” he said.
The U.S., Israel and Iran are not signatories to the International Criminal Court, which investigates and tries crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Threats as war crimes
International law experts also said that under international law, threatening to carry out a war crime can be considered a war crime in and of itself, although threats alone were unlikely to be prosecuted.
"Even if the threat is not deemed a war crime in itself, it would be evidence of criminal intent, as opposed to an erroneous misfire, if the attack is carried out," according to Roth.
While Rapp said Trump's comments could be put down to "bluster," he felt the president was “tearing up” Washington’s historic role in leading efforts to prosecute war crimes on the world stage, including in the Nuremberg trials, which saw top Nazi leaders prosecuted for their crimes during the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, he warned that Trump's threats also risked creating a “permission structure for others to threaten or commit similar crimes.”
Shadow of Gaza
Three former U.S. officials who resigned from the Biden administration over America's support for Israel's war in the Gaza Strip said the gravity of Trump's threats should not be downplayed.
Josh Paul, who resigned from his role as director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in 2023, said there appeared to be a growing "willingness to commit" possible war crimes, "whether by the U.S. or certainly by some of its partners."
"The fact that Trump feels he can use this in what almost seems like an idle threat, I think is part of what's so alarming about it ... given the context of Israel's absolute destruction of almost all civilian infrastructure in Gaza," said Annelle Sheline, who resigned the following year from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for the same reasons as Paul and whose work focused on the Middle East.
Another expert expressed a similar view.
"Once, you know, hospital after hospital, school after school, got bombed, journalist after journalist got killed, it became so normalized," said Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran foreign service officer who stepped down from the State Department in 2024.
"Now, when Trump makes the threat of attacking civilian infrastructure, many people don't even bat an eye."
Israel rejects allegations that it has committed war crimes in Gaza, where at least 72,285 people have been killed across two and a half years of war, according to figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
