Trump on Monday threatened a situation “where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
But Pentagon officials have debated whether that justification is valid, according to a third official who, like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The tension revolves around where to draw the line between military and civilian targets, such as water desalination plants, which could be considered targets because military forces also need water to drink.
Trump has threatened to launch strikes on infrastructure Tuesday night if the Iranians don’t reach a deal with the U.S. by 8 p.m. Eastern time. The U.S. alone has hit more than 13,000 targets in Iran, according to U.S. Central Command.
The Pentagon referred questions to the White House.
“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “It does not mean the President has made a decision. The Iranian regime has until 8:00 p.m. tomorrow to make a deal with the United States. If they fail to do so, the president will send them back to the Stone Age, just as he promised.”
Trump, during a press conference Monday on the Iran war, said the Iranian people would welcome energy infrastructure strikes. They “would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. “They want us to keep bombing.”
The American-Israeli bombing campaign has generally spared the country’s supply of electricity and fuel. But as frustrations grow at the White House over Iran’s refusal to capitulate to what are — publicly at least — somewhat vague American demands, the target list has grown.
Trump, at the annual White House Easter event earlier Monday, said he is “not worried” about bombing civilian power plants and that it was Iran committing the war crimes.
“You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “Allowing a sick country, with demented leadership, [to] have a nuclear weapon — that’s a war crime.”
The Geneva Convention, which spells out the international humanitarian law, allows for leeway when strike sites are used by both the military and civilians.
“Before targets get approved, they have to go under operational legal review,” said Sean Timmons, a former Army Judge Advocate General. “Some civilian infrastructure, if dually used by the military, can under the laws of war be a legitimate target. The concern that people have, that this will get excessive, is legitimate … but there are checks and balances.”
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last year gutted the Pentagon offices that assist with military targeting and preventing civilian harm, which may mean less oversight of such issues.
Hegseth instead chose to reduce the number of employees working on the issue from 200 to less than 40. The laid-off staff assisted military commanders in choosing targets that would spare civilian lives, and investigated strikes after they occurred to better spare civilians in the future.
Hegseth last month announced he would further cut the lawyers who advise commanders of an operation’s legality, known as judge advocate generals. He fired Army, Navy and Air Force lawyers in the first days of the administration.
But Timmons also noted that Trump has repeatedly called for the Iranian population to help overthrow regime leaders. Attacks against key civilian support facilities could work against that goal.
“If your objective truly is degrading their military capacity … then indiscriminately bombing would only prolong the suffering of the individual people,” he said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, in a statement, blasted Trump’s threats to attack infrastructure targets as “reckless, dangerous, and indicative of a mindset that shows indifference to human life and contempt for religious beliefs.”