Trump's Latest Iran Threat Borrows From Putin's Playbook
Why threatening power plants won't cause Iran to back down.
On the evening of March 21, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Iran: he would bomb its power plants if Tehran didn’t fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He wrote on social media, “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Tehran warned that it would respond in kind. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesman, said that if Trump followed through, Tehran would attack U.S. and Israeli energy infrastructure, as well as desalination plants operated by U.S. allies in the Gulf. Tehran also vowed to keep the strait closed until Iranian power plants were rebuilt.
So far, this threat has not had the intended effect. Iran won’t reopen the strait because that is its leverage over the United States: by shooting cheap drones at oil tankers, Tehran can cause global oil prices to spike, which puts pressure on Trump to end the war ahead of midterm elections. Iran’s retaliation would likely cause a humanitarian crisis: lacking significant rainfall and permanent rivers, desalination accounts for more than 90 percent of the drinking water in several Gulf states.
Destroying Iran’s energy infrastructure as Trump has vowed would likely constitute a war crime. According to the Geneva Conventions, attacking civilian objects like power plants “wantonly” and “unlawfully” is prohibited. Under customary international law, launching an attack expected to cause damage to civilian objects “excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.” In other words, while striking a power plant used by a weapons factory and some civilians would be permissible, Trump’s threat of “STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST” doesn’t sound lawful.
Trump’s threat also echoed Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s strategy of targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
