I.
For decades, American presidents ignored the Iranian threat — make that Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden. Their dereliction only intensified the Iranian threat — until President Trump. His action against Iran has benefitted Middle Eastern countries, Europe and ultimately the US.
It’s a bit rich when President Clinton criticizes Trump for going after Iran when it was on Clinton’s watch, and due to his lack of will, that North Korea paved the path to its acquisition of nuclear weapons. It didn’t have to be this way. Go back and read the history. It’s one failure of nerve after another.
Yes, among the countries whose safety Trump has enhanced is Israel. This is in line with America’s best principles. This is right and good. Democracies stand with each other against tyranny. Last time we looked, the US has sent roughly $200 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine to stand up against Russia, another case of a democracy aided by the US, heroically standing against tyranny. The US has not sent soldiers to help Ukraine and has sent soldiers to help Israel. But also, Israel has deployed its own soldiers to help the US; not to mention Israel’s intensive intelligence sharing with the US for decades.
With the destruction of many, but not all, Iranian missiles and other weapons, people in Israel and the Gulf states are safer.
With the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities in this war and in last June’s war, people around the world are safer.
As a consequence of this war, the threat to exterminate the “Zionist entity” is weaker. Note Iran’s word: exterminate. It is the language not only of Iran but of its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.
Yet, there is a disconnect when it comes to the language of genocide. In many circles, it arouses no outcry when the language of genocide comes from Iran and its proxies; either that, or their threats are dismissed as “not serious” or “just rhetoric.”
Their threats are certainly not taken up by the International Criminal Court. Yet, in just two days, Jan. 8-9, 2026, Iran killed at least 6,500 of its own citizens, and perhaps 35,000, says the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran.
All this said, President Trump’s unqualified threat of the death of “a whole civilization” (i.e., Iran) is wrong.
Words count. Especially words uttered by leaders, especially world leaders — and doubly especially by the leader of a democracy.
The American Jewish Committee posted that while it “shares the objectives” of Trump’s war with Iran, it is “alarmed” by the president’s social media post. We share the objectives and the alarm.
It is one thing to utilize threats as an instrument of diplomacy; and, in the Iranian context, Trump has been good at that. But it is something else to state an unqualified intent to destroy a civilization, which is hard to interpret other than meaning its civilians as well as its fighters.
It is not in the best American tradition and not in the annals of morality for President Donald Trump to say that “a whole civilization will die tonight” (April 7) even if he also says, “I don’t want that to happen.” There is no such thing as harmless exaggeration when the subject is genocide.
II.
Beyond the moral question, Trump’s threat was unfortunate. It gave ample room for some to deepen the disconnect around genocide. Trump’s words offered the opportunity equate legitimate military targets with genocide.
Recoil over the threat to destroy Iranian civilization should not entail any limitation on the destruction of Iran’s legitimate military targets. Trump’s unqualified language invites an opposite extreme. Trump’s threat to take down an entire country invites critics to fallaciously redefine legitimate military targets as “civilization.”
Recoil over talk of the “death of a civilization” does not necessarily imply consensus over what constitutes a “civilization,” i.e., what an illegitimate target is.
What constitutes a military target? The answer often depends on who is making the rules. Color us skeptical when we hear that critics of the war against Iran invoke international law to cross off legitimate military targets. “International law” is often invoked to mean nothing other than an objection to a policy that one dislikes.
To our best lights, desalination plants or other water facilities are not legitimate military targets. But some who oppose Trump’s threat to kill an entire civilization say that it would be genocidal to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants, on the grounds that they sustain civilian life, not military power. However, there are bridges and there are bridges. There are power plants and there are power plants. Some sustain civilization — and some sustain Iran’s military. It’s a critical distinction.
It’s a distinction that can get lost by saying that Trump is genocidal when, in fact, the US attacks targets in Iran, perhaps including bridges and power plants, in order to defeat an evil regime.
III.
It is rich to hear the outrage over Trump’s remarks expressed by critics who say that Israel’s war of self-defense against Hamas is genocide.
For these critics, and there are many, the definition of genocide is tossed about loosely and usually reflects only opposition to the existence of Israel. “Genocide” is often deployed to advance opposition to Israel that long predated its war on Hamas. “Genocide” is often usedeither out of ignorance or out of bad faith to mischaracterize the extreme care of the Israel Defense Forces to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza and elsewhere. “Genocide” is often code for Jew hatred.
Yes, it is rich to hear critics who can’t see the real threat of genocide by Iran and its proxies but profess to see it in Trump. Yes, his words count, but what counts even more are actions. There is no genocide in Trump’s actions, nor in Israel’s, but there certainly is in Iran’s and Hamas’.
Recall: The first volley of Iran’s missiles on Israel came on April 13-14, 2024. And not a single Iranian missile then or now has hit a military target in Israel. The only Iranian targets are civilians ones. Iran’s ratio of military to civilian targets is zero. Every casualty of Iran in Israel — and in the West Bank — is a war crime.
The disconnect over genocide is apparent: When Iran aspires to it and attempts it, critics of Israel and of Trump fall silent. True enough, Trump smoothes the way for his critics by a reckless remark — but it was one remark. It was wrong, but it is not a policy, nor a pattern.
Perspective requires the retention of clarity as to who the aggressors are: Iran and Iran’s proxies. It is Iran that fires on Israel first. It is Iran that finances Hamas and reinforces its intent to commit atrocities. It is Iran that either demanded or rejoiced in Hezbollah’s most recent launch of a war against Israel on March 2, 2026. It is Iran that sees the existence of Israel as an embarrassment to its rulers’ theology. It is Iran and its proxies, not the US and not Israel, that are to be paired with “genocide.”
Iran is evil and not yet defeated. Iran still poses a threat to its people, to Israel, to the Gulf States, to Europe and to the US. The war against Iran is a just war in which the stakes could not be higher: the risk of fanatics in possession of long range missiles, of nuclear bombs, and of the will to use both against civilians, with perverse joy.
© IJN 2026
