There may be legal basis for striking parts of Iran’s electrical grid, but not for having a “whole civilization…die”
Yesterday morning, President Trump’s rhetoric about Iran reached a new level when he said, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Fortunately, as of this writing, it seems that a two-week ceasefire has been agreed upon.
Still, let’s consider the President’s words. Although they seem like the kind of hyperbole he tends to use as a negotiating tactic, how do they square with international law? They don’t.
As I explained in some detail here, there are two legal bases for striking certain elements of Iran’s infrastructure, but neither allows having a “whole civilization…die”
Some context:
In this post I’ll borrow liberally from my earlier essay. The first legal basis involves traditional targeting rules. For an object to be a lawful target under that analysis, it must be a “military objective.” The DoD Law of War Manual (unchanged by Trump 1.0 or 2.0) defines military objectives this way (¶5.6.3):
“Military objectives, insofar as objects are concerned, include ‘any object which by its nature, location, purpose or use makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.’”
Can an electric power station qualify as a military objective? Yes. The DoD LoW Manual states:
Iranian use of densely populated areas
US Central Command reports that Iran, contrary to customary international law, is using civilian areas for military activities:
“The Iranian regime is using heavily populated civilian areas to conduct military operations, including launching one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles. This dangerous decision risks the lives of all civilians in Iran since locations used for military purposes lose protected status and could become legitimate military targets under international law.
Iranian forces are using crowded areas surrounded by civilians in cities such as Dezful, Esfahan and Shiraz to launch attack drones and ballistic missiles.”
If such areas are struck with conventional munitions in an effort to stop their military use, the chances of unintended civilian casualties increase. However, disrupting the electrical supply may degrade the Iranians’ ability to conduct operations without the physical risk of bombs dropping among civilians. Thus, it may make sense to strike the electricity plants providing power to those areas serving Iranian military operations.
“War Supporting” military objectives
Even if a power plant was not directly used by Iran’s military to conduct combat operations, it can still become, in the U.S.’ controversial (but correct in my opinion) view, a proper military objective if it is integral to “war-sustaining” enterprises. Specifically, the DoD LoW Manual says (¶ 5.6.1.2):
“It is not necessary that the object provide immediate tactical or operational gains or that the object make an effective contribution to a specific military operation. Rather, the object’s effective contribution to the war-fighting or war-sustaining capability of an opposing force is sufficient. Although terms such as “war-fighting,” “war-supporting,” and “war-sustaining” are not explicitly reflected in the treaty definitions of military objective, the United States has interpreted the military objective definition to include these concepts.” (Emphasis added.)
In the case of Iran, not only does it appear that Iran’s military is relying upon the same grid as civilians to conduct operations, it also appears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military force “parallel to that of Iran’s regular armed forces, with upward of 190,000 troops under its command,” is also deeply and directly entwined in the economy in a way that supports a finding that the power grid supports its vast business empire. Fortune magazine points out
“Over the years, the IRGC also developed a diversified business empire that helps finance the regime as well as its own military and ideological agenda. That empire includes core industrial sectors like oil and transportation as well as banking, telecommunications, agriculture, medicine, and real estate. The IRGC uses affiliates to engage in business activities. For example, the Khatam al-Anbiya engineering firm has built refineries, a railway line, a dam, and a natural gas pipeline. It also controls Tehran’s international airport.”
As Euronews says, “From construction and energy, to ports and telecommunications, Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard or IRGC dominates large parts of the economy.” Indeed, Yale University’s Arash Aziz told NPR that the IRGC “now control about 50% of the Iranian economy.”
Although attacking war supporting targets was until relatively recently disdained by many legal academics, those criticisms have faded as Ukraine has made attacking Russia’s war-supporting oil infrastructure central to its strategy. In fact, Reuters reports that Ukrainian drone attacks are a key reason 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity is at a “halt.”
In short, attacking power plants supporting military operations can erode Iran’s ability to strike the U.S., its allies, and neutrals, and preventing such strikes offers a definite military advantage. In addition, attacking those plants or others involved in powering the “war supporting” enterprises the IRGC controls, can also offer a definite military advantage.
Proportionality
Simply because something is a proper military objective doesn’t automatically mean it can be legally attacked. It must still pass the proportionality test. The ICRC says:
“Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.” (Emphasis added.)
As the ICRC notes the harm that must be considered is “incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof” not necessarily other kinds of harm.
Furthermore, the DoD LoW Manual (¶ 5.12.1.3) sets out the U.S. view that the harm must be “very soon” after the attack (using power plants as an illustration):
“For example, if the destruction of a power plant would be expected to cause the loss of civilian life or injury to civilians very soon after the attack due to the loss of power at a connected hospital, then such harm should be considered in assessing whether an attack is expected to cause excessive harm.” (Emphasis added.)
Contrary to some legal pundits, remote harms need not be considered. The DoD LoW Manual explains (¶ 5.12.1.3):
“The expected loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects is generally understood to mean such immediate or direct harms foreseeably resulting from the attack. Remote harms that could result from the attack do not need to be considered in applying this prohibition.“ (Emphasis added.)
International law also calls upon belligerents to take feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of war. In that regard, neutralizing power plants supporting military operations or war supporting activities is likely to involve less risk to civilians than an effort to physically destroy those capabilities where Iran has embedded in heavily populated areas.
Further, targeteers should consider the viability of conducting a strike that neutralizes a power plant’s ability to furnish electricity to Iran’s military and/or the IRGC’s war supporting enterprises without necessarily destroying the power generation capability itself. This would be especially important in the case of Iran’s one nuclear plant.
For example, nonkinetic cyber means might be designed to shut down the plant. If a kinetic means was used, targeteers doing nodal or systems analysis would certainly focus on the plethora of “soft” (but hard to replace) elements that are indispensable to a power plant’s ability to effectively contribute to the power grid, but whose destruction does not risk a release of radiation and keeps extant the power generation equipment
These targets could include electrical transformers, substations, high voltage power lines (and their pylons), etc., that are crucial to getting electricity to where it is needed but don’t involve nuclear material and striking them would not likely cause significant civilian casualties. It would be a functional kill of the plant’s near-term value, but not a physical one carrying the peril of the dispersal of radioactivity or permanent loss of generation capacity.
Military advantage anticipated
The military advantage is obviously to degrade Iran’s ability to conduct military operations, and to erode the IRGC’s war supporting activities, all with a view towards achieving a military advantage that is critically important, and one the world also seeks: the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz s plainly illegal. UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2817 (11 Mar 2026) declared that impeding the “lawful transit passage or freedom of navigation in [Strait of Hormuz] constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security.”
The loss of the 20% of the world’s oil supply that is shipped though the Strait has caused chaos around the globe to billions of innocent people. The Washington Post reported that “fuel shortages have spawn[ed] panic, robberies and killings in Asia.”
As I said in my earlier post, in addition to the harm to civilians from the loss of oil shipments, there is also the specter of another humanitarian crisis. Specifically, Project Syndicate, an international media organization, contends:
While media coverage of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has focused on oil prices, the implications for global food supplies are no less alarming. A prolonged closure could disrupt agriculture worldwide and place more than 100 million people at risk of a humanitarian catastrophe. (Emphasis added.)
Project Syndicate elaborates:
“[T]he most immediate and dangerous consequences of a prolonged closure may show up at the dinner table, not the gas pump. The Strait of Hormuz, after all, is not just a shipping lane for oil tankers; it is a critical artery of the global food system. Key food staples – including wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, sugar, and animal feed – travel through the Strait on their way to the Gulf countries, and farmers around the world depend on the fertilizers and fuel that flow out of it.” (Emphasis added.)
Citing a new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another analyst summarizes why he believes that “if the Strait of Hormuz stays shut, famine follows”:
“The Strait of Hormuz is not merely an energy chokepoint. It is the single most critical bottleneck in the global food system. Approximately thirty-five per cent of the world’s urea exports, thirty per cent of its ammonia, forty-four per cent of its seaborne sulphur, and twenty per cent of its phosphate fertiliser transit that passage. These are not obscure commodities. They are the chemical foundation of modern agriculture. Without nitrogen fertiliser, synthesised from natural gas and ammonia, crop yields collapse. Without sulphur and phosphate, the soil amendments on which billions of people’s food supply depends simply do not get made.” (Emphasis added.)
At particular risk of food insecurity are the Gulf states, which import over 70% of their foodstuffs through the Strait of Hormuz. As concerning as that may be, the reality is that, as the Carnegie Endowment notes, in terms of food insecurity, “poorer countries will suffer the most” from the closure of the Strait.
Reprisal
Iran’s illegal activities raises another legal basis for striking some power plants: the law of reprisal. Although the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) asserts there is a trend to outlaw reprisals it nevertheless concedes it still exists (albeit under “stringent” rules). Here’s how the ICRC describes reprisal:
State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in international armed conflicts. A belligerent reprisal consists of an action that would otherwise be unlawful but that in exceptional cases is considered lawful under international law when used as an enforcement measure in reaction to unlawful acts of an adversary.” (Emphasis added.)
Iran’s violations of international law are documented in UNSCR 2817 which condemned “the egregious attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the territories of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan,” determining them to “constitute a breach of international law and a serious threat to international peace and security.“
The UNSCR went on to also find that “that residential areas were attacked, that civilian objects have been targeted and that the attacks resulted in civilian casualties and damage of civilian buildings.”
Moreover, the immense harm done by the wrongful closure of Strait also provides key elements required by the law of reprisal. However, as the belligerents have returned to negotiation, the situation does not currently warrant a reprisal attack.
If diplomacy breaks down, the law of reprisal can permit a wide range of strikes that would not conform to conventional targeting law, if they are aimed at stopping illegal Iranian acts
However, there are limits to reprisal. As the DoD LoW Manual explains (¶ 18.18.2.4 ) “[t]o be legal, reprisals must respond in a proportionate manner to the preceding illegal act by the party against which they are taken.” Additionally, a “reprisal should not be unreasonable or excessive compared to the adversary’s violation.” Consequently, reprisals aimed at having a “whole civilization…die” could not be lawful.
Concluding thoughts
If the right facts exist, there are paths in the law that might find attacks on some or even many Iranian power plants justifiable, especially given threat the closure of the Strait poses for food security around the world as well as the risks of global chaos from fuel shortages.
That said, rhetoric about a “whole civilization” dying as a result of attacks is seriously wrong even as a negotiating ploy. It suggests a plainly illegal attack is forthcoming, and it hurts the war effort at home and abroad.
There are – rightly – legal limits even when battling an evil regime. As the ICRC notes, “Art. 22 of the Hague Regulations, [states] that ‘the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.'” It doesn’t matter who the enemy is; there are still limits.
What is more, it undermines the moral narrative that has become so important to strategic success in 21st conflicts. The Administration would do well to remember Clausewitz’s admonition about the relationship of politics to war. For rule-of-law democracies, compliance with the law matters.
The U.S. has been fighting successfully and doing so while causing a relatively low number of civilian casualties. This is particularly remarkable given that there have been 13,000+ strikes against an enemy that, in many instances, has burrowed into densely populated areas. America’s military is showing the world it can fight bravely, effectively, and in accordance with the law. Their sacrifice and honor must not be squandered by ill-considered rhetoric from their leaders.
Remember what we like to say on Lawfire®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!
