2026-04-07T21:55:40.060Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
特约分析
扎卡里·B·沃尔夫
更新于1小时4分钟前
更新时间：2026年4月7日美国东部时间下午6:56
发布时间：2026年4月7日美国东部时间下午5:55
2026年4月6日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在白宫詹姆斯·S·布雷迪新闻发布厅出席新闻发布会后离场。
凯文·拉马克/路透社
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美军长达1200页的《战争法手册》中并未提及摧毁一个文明是否合法，这或许是因为无人曾设想过一位美国总统会发出如此末日般的威胁。
“整个文明今晚都将消亡，永无复兴之日，”美国总统唐纳德·特朗普周二上午在Truth Social的帖子中如此写道。他当时设定的最后期限为当晚8点，要求伊朗向美国“服软”并开放霍尔木兹海峡。特朗普周二晚些时候宣布，他已同意达成为期两周的停火协议，条件是伊朗同意重新开放这条关键航道。
特朗普向来有真人秀明星的行事风格，他将对伊朗的最后期限定在美国黄金电视时段，并在距离最后期限不到两小时时宣布了两周停火的消息。
但核心威胁依然存在。特朗普从不允许国际法妨碍自己，他仍在考虑下令美军实施文明灭绝式的战争罪行。
或许这些言辞只是虚张声势，或是“疯子理论”式的谈判策略——没人确切知道他会怎么做。又或许，这正是最高法院裁定总统对其官方行为享有完全法律豁免权后，这位总统的必然结果。
特朗普基本不受美国法律约束。那军方呢？
受他指挥的其他人可能并不享有同样的豁免权。科罗拉多州民主党众议员杰森·克劳告诉CNN的卡西·亨特，军方成员有义务不执行非法命令。
“如果有人要求你瞄准平民，要求你杀害妇女儿童，要求你杀害非战斗人员，要求你轰炸学校，要求你轰炸民用发电厂，那都将是战争罪行，”克劳说道。他表示，军人有独立遵守武装冲突法的义务。
两党对此都表示担忧。例如，右翼播客主持人塔克·卡尔森就表示，如果特朗普下令杀害平民，政府官员应该拒绝执行。
这场战争不就是为了防范大规模杀伤性武器吗？
美国与以色列一同发动这场战争，公开理由是确保伊朗永远不会获得大规模杀伤性核武器。而如今特朗普听起来已准备好释放大规模杀伤性武器，尽管他并未公开谈论使用核武器。
他谈论过的是摧毁伊朗的发电厂，让其9000万民众陷入黑暗，并摧毁桥梁以限制他们的行动。
“我不想那样，但这很可能会发生，”他在社交媒体帖子中说道。该帖子为伊朗提供了二选一的抉择：要么与美国谈判，要么面临某种形式的灭绝。
截至本文发稿时，伊朗的回应据报道是鼓励民众用身体保护发电厂和桥梁。
颇具讽刺意味的是，特朗普曾公开表示蔑视国际法，但他告诉NBC新闻，使用平民护盾违反了战争法。
“这完全非法，”特朗普周二对NBC说道，“他们无权这么做。”
国际愤怒与“战争罪行”警告
特朗普威胁要袭击发电厂的言论已经引发了国际谴责和警告。
“我紧急呼吁冲突各方在所有军事行动中保护平民和民用物体，”国际红十字委员会主席米尔亚娜·斯波利亚里奇在一份公开声明中说道，“这是他们根据国际人道主义法应尽的义务。”
加拿大总理马克·卡尼周二对记者表示：“加拿大期望这场冲突乃至任何冲突中的所有各方都尊重国际法。”
超过100名美国法律专家联名发表声明称，这场先发制人的战争违反了联合国宪章，而 targeting能源基础设施“可能构成战争罪行”。
另一位国际法专家、纽约大学法学院的瑞安·古德曼则更为尖锐。
“这不是法律分析，这是愚蠢之举，”古德曼在X平台上写道，并分享了《华尔街日报》一篇标题为《高级助手建议特朗普：打击伊朗基础设施是合理之举》的报道。
古德曼同时也是Just Security网站的高级编辑，他驳斥了报道中提出的观点，即发电厂是合法目标，因为它们可能煽动推翻伊朗政权的动乱。
发电厂此前也曾遭袭击
其他人则认为，袭击发电厂和桥梁有充分的法律依据，美国此前也曾这样做过。
乔治梅森大学安东宁·斯卡利亚法学院教授尤金·康托罗维奇在X平台上指出，美国此前曾袭击过发电厂。
“认为国际法禁止在战争中攻击桥梁或发电站的观点荒谬可笑，美国及其盟友在二战、朝鲜战争、越南战争、海湾战争，甚至1999年对南斯拉夫的空袭中都广泛这么做过，那次空袭导致塞尔维亚大部分地区断电，”康托罗维奇写道。
根据当时CNN的报道，那次对南斯拉夫的行动实际上是北约行动。空袭行动由美军参与，美军袭击了塞尔维亚的一座燃煤发电厂，目的是迫使塞尔维亚军队撤出科索沃。联合国并未授权此次空袭，但随后授权了地面维和部队。而特朗普与以色列发动的这场战争，既未经过北约也未经过联合国授权。
特朗普政府蔑视国际法
国防部长皮特·赫格斯——他使用特朗普授予的“战争部长”头衔——曾表示，对伊朗的战争将不会受“愚蠢的交战规则”约束。
美军的战争法手册确实谈到了袭击桥梁和发电厂，并明确表示在特定情况下两者都可以成为打击目标。
2026年4月3日，伊朗卡拉季，B1大桥在空袭被摧毁后的次日景象。
马吉德·萨伊迪/盖蒂图片社
何时可以袭击发电厂和桥梁？
判断一国基础设施是否为合法军事目标有两项测试标准。
首先，根据美军手册，目标必须有效助力敌军的军事行动；其次，摧毁该目标必须能带来明确的军事优势。
但正如担心美军可能犯下战争罪行的国际法专家所指出的，还有另一个问题：“相称性”。
“相称性原则禁止预期会造成附带平民伤害的袭击，若此类伤害与军事优势相比超出合理范围，”他们写道。
这是特朗普向世界传递的信号
当然，摧毁一个面积是德克萨斯州两倍的国家的大部分发电厂，必然会造成平民伤害。另一方面，电力控制已成为美国政府的工具：今年早些时候，美国颠覆委内瑞拉政府并对其石油出口至古巴施加新限制后，对古巴的禁运基本切断了该岛国的电力供应。美国政府希望这种伤害能迫使古巴屈服。
“总统威胁要对伊朗动用的那种大规模武力……每一座桥梁、每一个火车站，似乎都不符合合法军事目标的标准，”中东研究所高级研究员史蒂文·库克周二在CNN《新闻中心》节目中说道。
但他表示，这些威胁也传递了另一个重要信息。
“它向世界传递的信息，也是世界早已明白的一点，即美国已经偏离了我们乐于相信自己所遵循的诸多规范和原则，”库克说道。
对于此前一直将美国视为维护国际法国家的美国人来说，他们对美国文明的认知也正受到审视。
本文已根据最新报道进行更新。
Is that legal? Trump threatens bridges, power plants and a ‘whole civilization’
2026-04-07T21:55:40.060Z / CNN
Analysis by
Zachary B. Wolf
Updated 1 hr 4 min ago
Updated Apr 7, 2026, 6:56 PM ET
PUBLISHED Apr 7, 2026, 5:55 PM ET
President Donald Trump leaves following a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 6, 2026.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
There’s nothing in the military’s 1,200-page Law of War Manual about whether it’s legal to end a civilization, perhaps because nobody could have imagined an American president would make such an apocalyptic threat.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning, referencing his 8 p.m. deadline for Iran to cry “Uncle” to the US and open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump later Tuesday announced he’d agreed to a two-week ceasefire on the condition that Iran agree to reopen the critical waterway.
Ever the reality TV showman, Trump timed his deadline for Iran to prime-time TV hours in the US — and announced the two-week pause with less than two hours to go before his deadline.
The underlying threat remains, however. Never one to let international law get in the way, Trump is still flirting with ordering the US military to commit war crimes by undertaking civilizational erasure.
Maybe those words are bombast or a “madman theory” negotiating tactic – nobody knows exactly what he’ll do. Maybe they are the obvious result of a president being told by the Supreme Court he has immunity from all law for his official acts as president.
Trump is largely immune from US laws. What about the military?
The same immunity may not exist for everyone under his command. Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that members of the military have an obligation not to follow illegal orders.
“If you’re asked to target civilians, if you’re asked to kill women and children, you’re asked to kill noncombatants, you’re asked to bomb a school, you’re asked to bomb a civilian power plant, that would be a war crime,” Crow said. Service members, he said, have independent obligations to follow the law of armed conflict.
There is bipartisan concern. Right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson, for instance, said officials in the administration should say no if Trump orders the killing of civilians.
Wasn’t this war launched to guard against mass destruction?
The US launched the war, along with Israel, for the stated reason of making sure Iran never obtained nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Now Trump sounds prepared to unleash mass destruction, although he has not talked publicly about using nuclear weapons.
What he has talked about is plunging Iran’s 90 million citizens into darkness by destroying their power plants and restricting their movement by destroying their bridges.
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he said in the social media post, which offers Iran a binary choice of negotiating with the US or facing some kind of extinction.
As of this writing, Iran has answered by reportedly encouraging civilians to shield power plants and bridges with their bodies.
Trump, somewhat ironically given his stated disdain for international law, told NBC News that civilian shields would violate the laws of war.
“Totally illegal,” Trump told NBC Tuesday. “They’re not allowed to do that.”
International outrage and ‘war crimes’ warnings
Trump’s threats to go after power plants have already drawn international condemnation and warnings.
“I urgently call on parties to spare civilians and civilian objects in all military operations,” said International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric in a published statement. “It is their obligation under international humanitarian law.”
“Canada expects all parties in this conflict, in any conflict, to respect international laws,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Tuesday.
More than 100 US legal experts signed onto a statement saying that the entire war, launched preemptively, violated the UN’s charter, and that targeting energy infrastructure “could entail war crimes.”
Another international law expert, Ryan Goodman of New York University’s School of Law, was much more pointed.
“This isn’t legal analysis. It’s idiocy,” Goodman wrote on X, sharing a Wall Street Journal report with the headline: “Top Aides Advise Trump Blasting Iran’s Infrastructure Is Fair Game.”
Goodman, who is also a top editor at the website Just Security, took issue with the idea cited in the story that power plants are legitimate targets because they could foment unrest that could topple Iran’s regime.
Power plants have been targeted before
Others argue there is plenty of room for the targeting of power plants and bridges and that the US has done so before.
Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, pointed out on X that the US has targeted power plants before.
“The notion that international law prohibits attacking bridges or power stations in war is ludicrous, and the U.S. and its allies did so extensively in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and even the 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia, which left most of Serbia without electricity,” Kontorovich wrote.
That Yugoslavia example was actually a NATO operation, according to CNN’s report at the time. The air campaign included the US military, which struck a Serbian coal plant as it sought to drive the Serbian army out of Kosovo. The United Nations did not authorize the air campaign, but it did authorize a subsequent ground peacekeeping force. Trump and Israel launched their war without input from either NATO or the UN.
The Trump administration disdains international law
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who goes by his Trump-bestowed secondary title secretary of war, has said the war with Iran would be conducted without “stupid rules of engagement”.
The military’s manual on the law of war does talk about targeting bridges and power plants, and it makes clear that both can be targeted at certain times.
A view of the damaged B1 bridge a day after it was destroyed by an air strike, on April 3, 2026, in Karaj, Iran.
Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
When is it OK to target power plants and bridges?
There is a two-part test for determining whether a country’s infrastructure is a legitimate military target.
First, according to the US war manual, the target must make an effective contribution to the enemy’s military; second, destroying it must offer a distinct military advantage.
But there is another issue, as the international law experts worried about the US committing war crimes point out — that of “proportionality.”
“The proportionality principle prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental civilian harm that would be excessive in relation to the military advantage,” they wrote.
This is Trump’s message to the world
Certainly, destroying a large portion of the power plants in a country twice the size of Texas would cause civilian harm. Control of power, on the other hand, has become a tool of the US government; an embargo on Cuba has largely turned off the power on that island after the US decapitated Venezuela’s government and put new restrictions on its oil exports to Cuba earlier this year. The administration hopes the harm will force Cuba into submission.
“The kind of mass force that the president is threatening (on Iran) … every bridge, every railway station, don’t seem to qualify as legitimate military targets,” Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said on CNN News Central on Tuesday.
But the threats convey something else important, he said.
“What it says to the world is something that the world has already understood, which is the United States has strayed from many of the norms and principles by which we like to believe that we live,” Cook said.
For Americans who heretofore viewed the US as the country that upheld international law, their conception of American civilization is also up for review.
This article has been updated with new reporting.
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