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Wasn’t that in response to Trump posting that he’d hit theirs? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-hegseth-and-caine-hold-pentagon-briefing-as-tru

Wasn’t that in response to Trump posting that he’d hit theirs? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-hegseth-and-caine-hold-pentagon-briefing-as-trump-threatens-irans-infrastructure https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-hegseth-and... > In a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned that the U.S. would obliterate "all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet 'touched.'"

graemep 7mo ago
It follows Trumps threats to destroy power plants, but predates the threat you quote. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/22/iran-says-destroy-middle-east-infrastructure-us-energy-sites https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/22/iran-says-dest... AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does. If attacking power plants and oil production is a war crime, then Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries are guilty of it.
- embedding-shape 7mo ago
  > AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does. Of course not, but I still think the expectation that someone doesn't commit war crimes against you disappears relatively quickly when you're openly and proudly admitting you'll open to violating the rules of war and saying international humanitarian law doesn't matter.
- nkrisc 7mo ago
  That may be so, but remember that Ukraine is fighting for its very survival, and Iran may be as well.
JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> Wasn’t that in response to Trump posting that he’d hit theirs? It's Iran. They haven't been following international law since 1979. That isn't an excuse to commit war crimes against them. But Iran really doesn't have any legs to stand on when it comes to complaining about targeting civilian infrastructure–they and their proxies have been doing this for decades.
- megous 7mo ago
  Just claiming something doesn't make it true. And also there's the whole scale thing.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > there's the whole scale thing Sort of? I don't think that's really how war crimes work. Unless we're objectively in eye-for-an-eye territory, in which case we're not really talking about international law anymore. (To be clear, I think everyone talking about international law in this conflict is posturing. We've been collectively setting new norms for years, and between Russia, China and America, the rules seem to have inched closer to total war.)
    - megous 7mo ago
      It doesn't matter. Killing 34 something children like Hamas did vs 20 000 something children like Israel did in the same conflict. Or threatening some water facility in a country with functioning air defense vs threatening entire population of 92 million with complete anihilation ("A whole civilization will die tonight" like Trump just said on behalf of all americans - credible threat from a nuclear superpower with enough nukes to spare), in a country where they can't really defend against this other than spreading the costs on enemy-allied countries. There's bad, and there's 100x worse. And yeah, people should focus on stopping the 100x worse first, is my belief.
      - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
        > people should focus on stopping the 100x worse first That's fair. When I see conflicts like this, I tend to sit back and observe. There are enough conflicts on the planet where both sides are not being bastards, and where the diffences in scale of bastardly doesn't clearly map to differences in capability (versus will).
- curt15 7mo ago
  >They haven't been following international law since 1979. History doesn't start in 1979. Why not go back to 1953? Overthrowing another country's elected government is no more conscionable under international law.
pjc50 7mo ago
Iran was having a water crisis before all this, to the extent of considering relocating the capital city away from Tehran's current location. Bombing Iranian water infrastructure will kill a lot of civilians, just as similar things happened in the Yemeni civil war (which Iran is a participant in). It's disheartening how much the prospect of mass murder is met with a shrug.

graemep 7mo ago

It follows Trumps threats to destroy power plants, but predates the threat you quote. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/22/iran-says-destroy-middle-east-infrastructure-us-energy-sites https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/22/iran-says-dest... AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does. If attacking power plants and oil production is a war crime, then Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries are guilty of it.

embedding-shape 7mo ago
> AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does. Of course not, but I still think the expectation that someone doesn't commit war crimes against you disappears relatively quickly when you're openly and proudly admitting you'll open to violating the rules of war and saying international humanitarian law doesn't matter.
nkrisc 7mo ago
That may be so, but remember that Ukraine is fighting for its very survival, and Iran may be as well.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago

> Wasn’t that in response to Trump posting that he’d hit theirs? It's Iran. They haven't been following international law since 1979. That isn't an excuse to commit war crimes against them. But Iran really doesn't have any legs to stand on when it comes to complaining about targeting civilian infrastructure–they and their proxies have been doing this for decades.

megous 7mo ago
Just claiming something doesn't make it true. And also there's the whole scale thing.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > there's the whole scale thing Sort of? I don't think that's really how war crimes work. Unless we're objectively in eye-for-an-eye territory, in which case we're not really talking about international law anymore. (To be clear, I think everyone talking about international law in this conflict is posturing. We've been collectively setting new norms for years, and between Russia, China and America, the rules seem to have inched closer to total war.)
  - megous 7mo ago
    It doesn't matter. Killing 34 something children like Hamas did vs 20 000 something children like Israel did in the same conflict. Or threatening some water facility in a country with functioning air defense vs threatening entire population of 92 million with complete anihilation ("A whole civilization will die tonight" like Trump just said on behalf of all americans - credible threat from a nuclear superpower with enough nukes to spare), in a country where they can't really defend against this other than spreading the costs on enemy-allied countries. There's bad, and there's 100x worse. And yeah, people should focus on stopping the 100x worse first, is my belief.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > people should focus on stopping the 100x worse first That's fair. When I see conflicts like this, I tend to sit back and observe. There are enough conflicts on the planet where both sides are not being bastards, and where the diffences in scale of bastardly doesn't clearly map to differences in capability (versus will).
curt15 7mo ago
>They haven't been following international law since 1979. History doesn't start in 1979. Why not go back to 1953? Overthrowing another country's elected government is no more conscionable under international law.

pjc50 7mo ago

Iran was having a water crisis before all this, to the extent of considering relocating the capital city away from Tehran's current location. Bombing Iranian water infrastructure will kill a lot of civilians, just as similar things happened in the Yemeni civil war (which Iran is a participant in). It's disheartening how much the prospect of mass murder is met with a shrug.