Trump’s threat to blow “everything up” if Iran won’t make a deal hangs over new ceasefire bid

The spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said Monday that President Trump’s repeated threats to attack the country’s civilian infrastructure amounted to war crimes, as he acknowledged ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the war but warned that “negotiation can in no way be compatible with ultimatums, crimes, or threats to commit war crimes.

As reports said Pakistan had handed Tehran and Washington a proposal for a 45-day ceasefire, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said it was “not unusual for intermediaries to convey the positions of the parties … and naturally, this process continues.”

“However, negotiation can in no way be compatible with ultimatums, crimes, or threats to commit war crimes,” Baqaei added in remarks conveyed by Iranian state media.  

“Regarding threats against us, there is no doubt: issuing such threats constitutes war crimes, encourages war crimes, and normalizes war crimes. Repeatedly threatening a country with the destruction of energy and industrial infrastructure, while signaling to the Israeli regime to attack civilian targets either alone or with your cooperation, constitutes a war crime under both international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Baqaei said.

Others have warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute a war crime. 

“Electrical generating plants power hospitals, they power schools, water sanitation facilities, the things that you need to sustain basic day-to-day living for a civilian population,” Tess Bridgeman, who was a legal adviser to President Obama’s National Security Council, told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin over the weekend. “Obliterating all power plants, threatening coercive actions against the civilian population to try to bring a government to the negotiating table, those kinds of things are flatly illegal.”

Elliott Abrams, who served as special representative for Iran in the first Trump administration, told Martin punishing the Iranian population would undercut the U.S. cause. “We want the Iranian people on our side,” he said. “I’d rather see us go after regime targets, assets they use to repress the Iranian people, not assets Iranians use to live their daily lives.”