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For Trump, Every Accusation Is a Confession

Like authoritarian regimes elsewhere, the White House is denouncing its opponents for the very abuses it is carrying out.

President Donald Trump at an April press conference about the war in Iran.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump announced on social media that every time the Iranians hit a ship in the Straits of Hormuz, the US military would take out an Iranian bridge or power plant.

Under international law, the targeting of civilian infrastructure is a war crime. That doesn’t mean that previous administrations haven’t flouted these laws, but they generally haven’t publicly gloried in ordering such crimes. Trump, by contrast, is gleefully promising to do so, essentially daring the world to stop him.

In bygone years, the military’s legal watchdogs would have raised enough red flags that such threats (a) likely wouldn’t be made in the first place and (b) wouldn’t be acted on if they were made. But the Trump administration has neutered the military’s watchdogs, and with the leadership of the armed forces besmirched by having gone along with such obviously criminal acts as the assassination of sailors in the Pacific and the Caribbean, there’s little chance of seeing significant military opposition to Trump’s demands to strike civilian infrastructure.

Coopting the military leadership in the crimes of a civilian leadership is a telltale sign of authoritarian governance. The dirtier you can get the hands of the generals and admirals, the easier it is to then involve them in additional plans to solidify your power and to destroy your political opponents. Trump seems to instinctively know this. He knows, too, that his rationales for expanding the Iran war are flimsy and ever-changing—but that this shapeshifting justification for military aggression almost certainly won’t trigger effective resistance within the US military.

Witness his recent pivot to focus on Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified underground site in Iran that may or may not host some basic nuclear facilities and storage sites. This renewed focus on the remnants of Iran’s nuclear program would perhaps carry some moral weight if Trump hadn’t paired his newfound attention on this site with the signing........

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