I don’t know how better to put this than to say President Donald Trump’s threat this morning to “wipe out a whole civilization” of Iran puts America into a new immoral universe.

He is directly threatening a war crime. And every one of us is complicit in it, in the sense that this threat comes from the president of the United States, threatening to utilize our nation’s military power to exterminate an entire people.

Regardless of whether Trump follows through on this threat, it needs to be repudiated immediately. No civilized nation threatens to wipe out another civilization. No people, through their head of state, threatens to exterminate another people. No human being vested with official power by human beings threatens to wipe out another part of humanity.

Those of us who are silent right now—whether we call ourselves Democrats or Republicans, whether we........

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