ANALYSIS: Trump Threatens to Level Iranian Power Plants — and International Law Can’t Do Anything About It

How to Shut Down a Country in 43 Days

In January 1991, the U.S.-led coalition methodically destroyed Iraq’s power grid. Not by accident. By design. And with the approval of military legal advisors.

Operation Desert Storm targeted 28 Iraqi power plants in six weeks. The country’s electricity production fell to 4% of its pre-war capacity. Four percent. Iraq, the world’s fourth-largest military on paper, found itself in the dark—literally. No more refrigeration for medicines. No more pumping for drinking water. No more power for neonatal incubators.

The UN report published after the war described a country “thrown back into the pre-industrial era.” Estimates of indirect civilian deaths—those caused by the collapse of essential services, not by the bombs themselves—range from 100,000 to 200,000 people in the months that followed. Children died of diarrhea because sewage treatment plants were no longer functioning. Newborns died in incubators that had been turned off.

Legal Silence Amid the Ruins

No international court has ever adjudicated these strikes. No U.S. officer has been prosecuted. No sanctions have been imposed. International law looked the other way—because the Pentagon’s legal experts had checked all the right boxes. Dual use? Verified. Military advantage? Documented. Proportionality? Assessed and deemed acceptable.

Acceptable. Thirty-five years later, the word still rings out like a legal obscenity dressed up as military doctrine.

A calculation that no one can verify in real time

International law requires that civilian harm not be “excessive” in relation to the expected military advantage. But who defines “excessive” when the bombs are falling?

Article 51 of Additional Protocol I prohibits attacks “which may be expected to cause excessive civilian casualties in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” Every word counts. “Anticipated”—not “observed.” The assessment is made before the strike, based on projections. Projections that only the attacker controls.

This is the fundamental paradox of the law of war: the one who drops the bombs is also the one who assesses whether the bombs are legal. Judicial review comes only afterward—when the bodies are already buried under the rubble, when the reports are already classified, when the evidence is already covered in dust.

Iran: An Even More Complex Case

Iran is not Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Eighty-eight million people. An electrical grid serving tens of millions of civilians in densely populated urban areas. Cold winters in the north of the country where a loss of heating can be fatal. Hospitals already under strain after decades of sanctions.

Striking Iranian power plants in March would be tantamount to plunging Tehran, Isfahan, and Tabriz into a blackout that would affect more than just the military. Ventilators would stop. Dialysis treatments would be interrupted. Blood supplies would no longer be refrigerated. Civilian deaths do not begin with the explosion—they begin with the silence that follows.

Natanz, Fordow, Bushehr: Targets That Change Everything

Satellite images of the Pickaxe Mountain complex, near Natanz, show tunnels dug into the rock dozens of meters deep. What the images do not show is the radioactive cloud that would follow a bombing.

Iran’s nuclear program is no ordinary civilian program. Enriching uranium to 60% far exceeds energy needs—a threshold that experts consider the final step before militarization. But striking nuclear facilities poses a problem that conventional power plants do not: the dispersal of radioactive material.

Article 56 of Additional Protocol I specifically protects “installations containing dangerous forces”—dams, levees, and nuclear power plants. Their destruction is prohibited “even if these structures constitute military objectives” whenever it could release dangerous forces causing severe casualties among the civilian population. The protection is virtually absolute. Virtually.

The Osirak Precedent—and Its Forgotten Lessons

In 1981, Israel bombed the Iraqi Osirak reactor. The UN Security Council unanimously condemned the attack—Resolution 487, adopted unanimously, including the vote of the United States. Unanimously. Even Washington had voted in favor of the condemnation. Forty-five years later, this resolution did not prevent the Israeli strikes on the Syrian Al-Kibar reactor in 2007, nor the cyberattacks against the Iranian program, nor the assassinations of nuclear scientists in Tehran.

UN resolutions do not stand the test of time when the balance of power shifts.

A country that judges others but refuses to be judged

For a war crime to be tried, a court is needed. For a court to function, the powerful must accept its jurisdiction. The United States has never accepted it.

Washington has never ratified the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. Worse still: in 2002, Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act—nicknamed “The Hague Invasion Act”—which authorizes the president to use “all necessary means” to free any U.S. personnel detained by the ICC. All necessary means. Including military force.

Trump reinforced this stance. In 2020, he imposed personal sanctions against ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda for daring to investigate U.S. crimes in Afghanistan. The message was clear: international law applies to others, not to us.

The Structural Impunity of Major Powers

The ICC can only try nationals of States Parties or crimes committed on the territory of States Parties. Iran has not ratified the Rome Statute either. Neither the attacker nor the target recognizes the jurisdiction of the court supposed to try them. The Security Council could theoretically refer the matter to the ICC—but the United States holds a veto there.

The result: even if U.S. strikes on Iran constituted a war crime in the strict sense of international law, no existing institutional mechanism would allow for the prosecution of those responsible. The law exists. Its enforcement does not.

Twenty-one kilometers that change everything

Twenty-one percent of the world’s oil passes through a 21-kilometer-wide chokepoint. This numerical coincidence isn’t really a coincidence at all—it sums up the planet’s entire energy dependence.

The Strait of Hormuz is the most strategic chokepoint in global trade. Striking Iranian infrastructure without triggering a blockade of the strait is the stuff of operational fiction. Tehran has said it time and again: any attack on its soil would result in the immediate closure of the strait. Naval mines, anti-ship missiles, swarms of kamikaze drones.

The logistical nightmare has been documented by military planners themselves. Oil prices would soar to $200 a barrel within 48 hours. Global supply chains would be paralyzed. Europe, Japan, and South Korea would be plunged into an energy crisis that strategic reserves could cover for only a few weeks. The collateral damage of a war with Iran cannot be measured solely in Iranian lives—it is measured in global recessions.

Maritime Law Held Hostage

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea guarantees freedom of transit through international straits. Iran already violates this convention regularly—seizing oil tankers, engaging in naval harassment, and jamming GPS signals. But a total closure of the strait in response to U.S. strikes would raise an unprecedented legal question: Does an act of war justify a blockade that starves third parties?

International law offers no clear answer. It never has when the stakes exceed the institutions’ capacity to contain them.

"Shock and Awe" as a Philosophy

U.S. military doctrine does not seek to minimize destruction. It seeks to make it so massive that the enemy capitulates before even realizing what is happening to them.

The concept of “shock and awe,” theorized by Harlan Ullman in 1996, is based on a simple principle: the destruction of civilian infrastructure acts as a force multiplier. It is not collateral damage—it is a strategic objective. Depriving the enemy of electricity, water, communications, and transportation shatters its capacity to resist without necessarily engaging its armed forces.

This doctrine was applied in Iraq in 2003. The first 48 hours of the invasion systematically targeted Baghdad’s electrical and telecommunications hubs. The civilian population—those who had not chosen Saddam Hussein, those who had no say in their government’s policies—found themselves in the dark, without running water, without telephones, and with no way of understanding what was happening.

The lawyers who legitimize the unbearable

Every U.S. strike is approved by Judge Advocates—military lawyers integrated into the chain of command. Their role: to ensure that every target checked off the list is “in accordance with the law of armed conflict.” In practice, they almost never reject anything. The rejection rate for targets proposed by military staff is less than 2% in most documented operations.

It’s not that the law is absent. It’s that it is integrated into the process of destruction as a stamp of legitimacy, not as a real check on power.

Serbia, 1999: When NATO Blacked Out Belgrade

On May 23, 1999, NATO’s graphite bombs short-circuited Serbia’s power grid. The lights in Belgrade went out. They did not come back on for weeks.

Operation Allied Force aimed to force Milošević to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. NATO struck 14 Serbian power plants and transformers over 78 days of bombing. The justification: the electricity powered military command systems. The result: hospitals without power, water treatment plants out of service, and a civilian population held hostage between its own government and the Alliance’s bombs.

Amnesty International described some of these strikes as violations of international humanitarian law. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia examined the complaints—and dismissed them. No prosecutions. No accountability established.

Libya, 2011: The Mandate Hijacked

Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized a no-fly zone to “protect civilian populations.” NATO turned it into a regime-change campaign. Libyan civilian infrastructure was struck—Russia and China cried foul. International law had been used as a ticket in, then tossed aside like an empty wrapper.

And yet. And yet, every time a new conflict breaks out, the same voices invoke the same conventions, the same protocols, the same principles. As if repeating the words could make up for the lack of consequences.

A regional power armed to the teeth

Iraq in 2003 was a country exhausted by twelve years of sanctions. Iran in 2026 is a regional power with retaliatory capabilities that even the Pentagon describes as “significant.”

Iran’s ballistic missile program includes more than 3,000 missiles capable of reaching any U.S. base in the Middle East. Tehran’s proxies—Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and the Houthis—control territories stretching from Lebanon to Yemen. A strike on Iran would not go unanswered—it would trigger a regional conflagration whose scope is unpredictable.

U.S. military planners know this. Reports from the Congressional Research Service document it. Retired generals say so on CNN. But Trump doesn’t watch CNN. Trump watches the polls—and the polls say that America loves presidents who strike hard.

The civilian population as a balancing factor

Eighty-eight million Iranians. Families who did not choose their regime. Students who were still protesting in 2022 against the mandatory hijab. Women who risked their lives to dance without a hijab in the streets of Tehran. They are the ones who will be left in the dark if the power plants collapse.

International law refers to them as “protected civilians.” Trump calls them “pressure on the regime.” The difference between these two formulations is the difference between law and brute force.

Where are the allies?

When a U.S. president publicly threatens to raze the civilian infrastructure of a country with a population of 88 million, the silence from European capitals is not prudence. It is cowardice.

Paris, Berlin, London—no official condemnation of Trump’s remarks. Just “calls for restraint.” Just “concerns.” The lukewarm vocabulary of diplomacy when it’s afraid of upsetting Washington. Emmanuel Macron is negotiating the release of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris—a real diplomatic victory, but one that says nothing about the fundamental question: Does France consider the bombing of Iranian civilian power plants to be a war crime? Yes or no?

The question remains unanswered. And the absence of an answer is, in itself, an answer.

The Trap of the Atlantic Alliance

NATO binds Europeans to American decisions through a network of military, technological, and political dependencies that makes any public opposition extremely costly. To openly criticize a U.S. operation is to risk retaliation in the areas of trade, energy, and security. European sovereignty in foreign policy is a polite fiction—and the Iranian crisis provides the most brutal proof of this.

Rules Without an Arbiter

The problem with international law is not that it does not exist. The problem is that it exists without the power to enforce itself against those who violate it.

The Geneva Conventions have been signed by 196 states. Additional Protocol I was signed by 174—but not by the United States, not by Iran, not by Israel. The three main players in the current crisis have not ratified the text meant to bind them. It’s like drafting a contract that the parties refuse to sign—and then being surprised that it isn’t honored.

The UN Security Council, the only body with the power to enforce compliance, is paralyzed by vetoes. The ICC has no jurisdiction over either the United States or Iran. The International Court of Justice can issue advisory opinions—which no one is obligated to follow. International law is a majestic edifice built on sand.

The Illusion of the International Community

There is no such thing as an “international community.” There are power dynamics, divergent interests, alliances of convenience, and complicit silences. Humanitarian law works when the powerful want it to work—that is, when it applies to others. When it applies to them, it becomes “complex,” “open to interpretation,” and “dependent on the operational context.”

The same governments that invoked international law to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are the ones that remain silent when Trump threatens to plunge 88 million Iranians into darkness. Legal consistency is the first casualty of realpolitik.

War crime or act of war?

The real question is not whether bombing Iranian power plants would constitute a war crime. The real question is whether the distinction still matters when no one can punish the crime.

Strictly speaking, targeting civilian infrastructure without proportionate military justification constitutes a violation of Article 8 of the Rome Statute—a war crime. But strict law does not exist in the real world. It exists in textbooks. In the real world, a war crime without a court is a crime without a name.

And that is where the cynicism of Trump’s threat reaches its full force. Trump does not say, “We will respect international law.” He does not say, “We will consult with our allies.” He doesn’t say, “Civilian casualties will be minimized.” He says that power plants will collapse. He says that a civilization will die. And he says it knowing that no institution in the world can stop him.

The Verdict of Facts Versus the Verdict of Law

Legal experts will argue that the classification depends on the circumstances, proportionality, military advantage, and the operational context. They will be technically correct but morally wrong. Because when a president announces in advance that he is going to destroy civilian infrastructure—explicitly targeting power plants and bridges—the intent is documented, filmed, and archived. No post-conflict investigation is needed. The evidence is in the press conference.

But evidence without a court is like cries in the wilderness.

The Silent Erosion of Standards

Every unpunished threat lowers the threshold of what is acceptable. Every unpunished bombing of civilian power plants makes the next one easier. We are witnessing the dismantling of humanitarian law in real time—and we are keeping score.

Ukraine has documented Russia’s systematic destruction of its power grid—strikes that the entire West has labeled war crimes. Sanctions have been imposed. Arrest warrants have been issued. The same West that condemns Russian strikes on Ukrainian power plants watches as Trump threatens to do exactly the same thing in Iran—and looks for the differences.

There are none. International humanitarian law does not distinguish between “good” and “bad” destruction of civilian power plants. It distinguishes between violations and non-violations. And the explicit threat to target civilian infrastructure, made publicly by a head of state, is an act that, in a world where the law actually functioned, would trigger at the very least a preliminary investigation.

The Normalization of the Unthinkable

In 2003, the Bush administration at least took the trouble to fabricate a legal pretext—the imaginary weapons of mass destruction. In 2026, Trump doesn’t even bother with that anymore. He announces the destruction, he claims credit for it, he turns it into a televised spectacle. And the world watches, comments, analyzes—but does nothing.

The trivialization of the threat is already a victory for those who want a world without rules.

A truth that lawyers don’t like to hear

The deliberate bombing of civilian power plants in a country of 88 million people would, according to any rigorous legal analysis, likely constitute a violation of international humanitarian law. But “likely” and “punishable” are not synonymous.

International humanitarian law is clear on its principles: distinction between civilians and combatants, proportionality, and precaution in attack. Trump’s threats violate the spirit of all three principles simultaneously. But the spirit of the law is not enough—you need the letter of the law, the institution, the judge, and the enforcer. And there is no international enforcer capable of arresting the President of the United States.

So yes, it would likely be a war crime. And no, no one will be brought to trial. That is the most honest—and the most terrifying—answer that international law can offer in 2026.

What Remains When the Law Fails

What remains is memory. What remains is documentation. What remains are the organizations that count the dead whom states would rather not count. What remains are satellite archives, NGO reports, and survivors’ testimonies. International law cannot prevent the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities. But it can—and it must—name what this destruction truly is.

Not an “act of self-defense.” Not a “targeted operation.” Not “regrettable collateral damage.” A deliberate choice to inflict massive suffering on a civilian population to coerce its government. The law has a word for that. All that’s missing is the court.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost