Trump's 'There Will Be Bombing' Threat Is Deranged

It can’t be stressed enough that any U.S. attack on Iran would be illegitimate and unjustified.

The president makes another threat to start a war with Iran:

In Trump's first remarks since Iran rejected direct negotiations with Washington last week, he told NBC News that U.S. and Iranian officials were talking, but did not elaborate.

"If they don't make a deal, there will be bombing," Trump said in a telephone interview. "It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before."

The U.S. government is one of the only ones in the world that routinely threatens other states with illegal punitive military action. Americans have become so accustomed to hearing these threats from our leaders that many of us can forget how insane and outrageous this behavior is. If any other major power made threats like this against smaller countries, our government would be among the first to denounce them as aggressors. It can’t be stressed enough that any U.S. attack on Iran would be illegitimate and unjustified.

As a matter of international law, even the threat to use force against another state is a breach of the U.N. Charter. Using force when it is not in self-defense is a flagrant violation of international law. No one honestly believes that the U.S. would be defending itself if it bombed Iran.

The U.S. has no international mandate to use force against Iran. The president also has no authorization from Congress to use force against Iran. Even if Congress rubber-stamped it, an attack would still be a crime. When Trump makes these threats, he is announcing that he intends to be a war criminal.

Threatening another country with bombing if they don’t make a “deal” is pure extortion. It is the thuggish behavior of a rogue state. It is international gangsterism. This is exactly the sort of thing that the prohibition on the use of force was meant to eliminate.

Threatening to bomb Iran is also reckless and unnecessary. Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. wouldn’t have any right to attack them if they were, but the Trump administration isn’t pretending that this is the issue. The president is threatening to bomb them if they refuse to bend the knee.

Military action wouldn’t solve anything, either. Attacking Iran would almost certainly push their government to build the weapons that they have not been seeking for the last two decades. Trump would practically guarantee the outcome that he insists must never happen if he decides to launch an attack.

The nuclear issue could be fairly easily resolved through serious diplomacy and a willingness to compromise, but Trump has shown no interest in real negotiations. His “maximum pressure” campaign has ensured that the Iranian government refuses to engage in direct talks anyway. Instead he has delivered an extreme ultimatum that seems to have been designed to provoke a crisis.

Meanwhile the U.S. has been building up its forces in the region, including the deployment of B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia. We cannot dismiss Trump’s rhetoric as mere bluster. The president is talking and acting like someone preparing to launch a bombing campaign.

The U.S. has no good reason to go to war with Iran. If Trump orders an unprovoked attack on Iran, that is almost certainly what we will get. A war with Iran would be one of the stupidest, most avoidable wars of choice in U.S. history. If Americans want to stop this, we need to begin mobilizing opposition to a new war now before it starts.