2026年4月6日 美国东部时间下午3:10 / CNN
亚伦·布莱克 撰稿
唐纳德·特朗普总统周一在2026年白宫复活节滚彩蛋活动上对媒体发表讲话。
内森·霍华德/路透社
就在五个月前，唐纳德·特朗普总统及其盟友还对六名国会民主党人警告军人不要服从非法命令的视频感到愤怒，而如今特朗普正亲身印证了他们当时的担忧。
他设定了美国东部时间周二晚上8点的最后期限，要求伊朗同意一项协议并重新开放霍尔木兹海峡。特朗普多次表示，若伊朗不同意，他将袭击伊朗的基础设施，包括发电厂、桥梁、油井，甚至可能还有海水淡化厂等设施，这种做法很可能构成战争罪。
目前尚不清楚如果未能达成协议，他是否会兑现威胁。尽管几乎没有证据表明双方进行了认真谈判，他还是多次推迟了最初设定在两周前的最后期限。
周一被问及可能犯下战争罪的问题时，特朗普表示他并不担心。
“你知道什么是战争罪吗？”他在白宫对记者说，“战争罪是任由伊朗拥有核武器。”
十多年来，特朗普一直在暗示可能采取构成战争罪的行动——而近几个月来，他 arguably 已经违反了国际法——如今这位总统威胁要在可想象的最大规模战场上兑现这些威胁。
如果伊朗的民用基础设施具有军事双重用途，则可被视为合法打击目标。但特朗普威胁的不只是炸毁部分伊朗发电厂，他还威胁要炸毁所有发电厂。
一周前，特朗普在社交媒体上发文威胁：“炸毁并彻底摧毁他们所有的发电厂、油井和哈尔克岛（可能还有所有海水淡化厂！）……”（他此前曾暗示要炸毁哈尔克岛的石油基础设施。）
周三，总统在黄金时段的讲话中放话加码，称“我们将狠狠打击他们每一座发电厂，而且可能同时发动攻击。”
周日，他在一条格外狂热的帖子中警告最后期限即将到来。
“周二将是发电厂日，也是桥梁日，两者合二为一，就在伊朗，”他在Truth Social上写道，“这将是前所未有的！！！打开该死的海峡，你们这群疯子，否则你们将生活在地狱里——走着瞧！赞美真主。”
CNN的法里德·扎卡利亚指出，袭击基本能源基础设施显然违反国际法。
“这历来被视为战争罪，”扎卡利亚周日表示，“从字面解读来看，这显然违反了《日内瓦公约》。”
联合国秘书长发言人斯特凡纳·杜加里克上周回应特朗普的威胁时表示：“如果袭击明确的民用基础设施，这是国际人道主义法所不允许的。”
当天被问及本届政府是否在威胁犯下战争罪时，白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特含糊其辞地回应道。
“本届政府和美国武装力量当然始终会在法律框架内行事，”她说。
去年11月国会民主党人发布那段视频时，外界普遍认为特朗普绝不会下达此类非法命令，这简直不可思议。司法部甚至试图（未成功）起诉这些议员。
但特朗普多次暗示——在某些情况下，其政府甚至已经付诸行动——至少是公然无视国际法的行为。
2015年底特朗普首次竞选期间，他主张击毙恐怖分子家属，许多人很快指出这会违反国际法。
到2016年初，他主张使用酷刑，并承诺“恢复比水刑恶劣得多的酷刑手段”。当有人指出这些命令看起来违法时，他向军队保证无论如何都会执行（后来又收回了该表态）。
2020年，他威胁要袭击伊朗文化遗址，这将违反国际法，很可能构成战争罪。时任国防部长马克·埃斯珀很快承认了这一点，并承诺不会这么做，特朗普再次收回了相关表态。
2022年一起关注度较低的事件中，特朗普可能是开玩笑地提议，将美国飞机伪装成中国国旗，用它们“彻底轰炸俄罗斯”，以此挑起两国之间的战争。这显然会违反《日内瓦公约》。
到去年夏天，本届政府 arguably 已经实际犯下了可能构成战争罪的行为。当时美国在加勒比海对一艘疑似毒品走私船发动了第二次所谓的“双重打击”空袭，第一次空袭后仍有幸存者存活。
甚至有一些共和党政客对第二次空袭表示担忧。（值得一提的是，此类针对疑似毒品走私船的最初空袭本身在法律上就存在争议。）
《纽约时报》后来报道称，执行此次空袭的飞机被涂装成民用飞机的样子，并隐藏了武器。这与特朗普用他国国旗伪装飞机的想法类似，可能构成被称为“背信弃义”的战争罪。本届政府表示，该飞机已通过合规审查，并称此次空袭“完全符合武装冲突法”。
上月初，一艘美国潜艇击沉了一艘伊朗军舰，尽管该军舰并未参与战斗，且当时位于斯里兰卡附近的国际水域。一些专家认为，在未宣战且美国未努力营救幸存者的情况下，此次空袭可能存在法律问题。
到3月中旬，国防部长皮特·赫格斯西在简报会上表示，美军将“对敌人不留活口、毫不留情”。仅仅威胁“不留活口”——即拒绝向投降的敌人展现仁慈——似乎就违反了国际法。
所有这些事件的发展都遵循着特朗普熟悉的模式：他先提出看似不可思议的主张，随着时间推移，这些主张变得不再那么难以接受。
但任何人都不应忽视当前发生的情况：一位美国总统正在威胁采取看起来属于战争罪的行动，即便有人指出这可能违法，他仍执意如此。
若兑现威胁，不仅可能大幅升级伊朗局势的战争烈度，还可能长久改变世界舞台上对美国道德形象的看法。
考虑到特朗普曾谈到可能煽动伊朗民众推翻本国政府，这也标志着战略的真正转变。以伤害平民的方式袭击伊朗基础设施，且这种伤害会持续多年，可能会让伊朗民众更加敌视美国。
（特朗普周一在没有提供证据的情况下声称，伊朗民众实际上希望遭遇此类轰炸，因为这可能带来自由。）
他多次推迟最后期限，似乎表明他对兑现威胁感到有些不安。但他的政府已经在西半球发动了可能构成战争罪的空袭。即便他在伊朗问题上选择不兑现威胁，他似乎仍将战争罪威胁作为谈判筹码。
目前尚不清楚他身边是否还有像埃斯珀这样的人，能够劝阻他采取此类行动。
无论如何，有一点相当明确：那六位民主党人当时或许是有道理的。
Trump’s many threats of possible war crimes reach a crescendo in Iran
2026-04-06 3:10 PM ET / CNN
Analysis by
Aaron Blake
President Donald Trump speaks to the members of the media during the 2026 White House Easter Egg Roll, on Monday.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
Just five months after President Donald Trump and his allies appeared indignant over a video in which six congressional Democrats warned service members not to obey illegal orders, Trump is showing exactly what they were talking about.
He’s set an 8 p.m. ET Tuesday deadline for Iran to agree to a deal and re-open the Strait of Hormuz. Otherwise, Trump has repeatedly said, he will strike Iranian infrastructure sites including power plants, bridges, oil wells and possibly others like water desalination plants in ways that could well amount to war crimes.
It remains to be seen whether he follows through if there is no deal. He has repeatedly delayed his deadline, which was initially set for two weeks ago, despite little evidence of serious negotiations.
When asked Monday about possibly committing war crimes, Trump said he wasn’t worried about it.
“You know the war crime?” he told reporters at the White House. “The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
After more than a decade floating actions that might constitute war crimes — and arguably already breaking international law in recent months — the president is threatening to make good on such threats in the biggest theater imaginable.
Civilian infrastructure can be considered a valid target if it has a dual use for Iran’s military. But Trump has threatened to not just blow up some of Iran’s power plants; he’s threatened to blow up all of them.
A week ago, Trump’s threat on social media was “blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!) …” (He had previously floated blowing up oil infrastructure on Kharg.)
On Wednesday, the president doubled down in a primetime address, saying that “we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously.”
And on Sunday, in a particularly frenzied post, he warned the deadline was fast approaching.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he wrote on Truth Social. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria noted that attacks on basic energy infrastructure appear to be transparently against international law.
“That has traditionally been considered a war crime,” Zakaria said Sunday, “and it certainly on plain reading is a violation of the Geneva Convention.”
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the United Nations secretary general, responded to Trump’s threats last week by saying: “If there’s an attack on clearly civilian infrastructure, that is not allowed under international humanitarian law.”
When asked the same day whether the administration was threatening war crimes, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded obliquely.
“Of course this administration and the United States armed forces will always act within the confines of the law,” she said.
When congressional Democrats released their video in November, it was cast as unthinkable that Trump would ever issue such an illegal order. The Justice Department even tried (unsuccessfully) to indict the lawmakers.
But Trump has repeatedly floated — and in some cases, the administration has done — things that at the very least flout international law.
In late 2015 during his first campaign, Trump advocated killing the families of terrorists, which many quickly noted would violate international law.
By early 2016, he advocated torture and pledged to “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” When it was noted that those orders appeared illegal, he assured troops would carry them out regardless (before backing off).
In 2020, he threatened to target Iranian cultural sites, which would have violated international law and likely have been a war crime. Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper quickly acknowledged as much and pledged not to do it, with Trump backtracking again.
In a lower-profile incident in 2022, Trump floated — possibly in a joking manner — disguising US planes with Chinese flags and using them to “bomb the shit out of Russia” in order to set off a war between those two countries. This would pretty clearly have violated the Geneva Conventions.
By last summer, the administration arguably tipped over into actually committing likely war crimes. This was when it conducted the second, so-called double-tap strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean after the first strike left survivors.
Even some Republican politicians expressed concern about that second strike. (And the initial strikes on such suspected drug boats, it bears mentioning, have been legally dubious.)
The New York Times later reported that the aircraft used in the strikes was painted to look like a civilian plane and hid its weaponry. That, similar to Trump’s idea to disguise a plane with another country’s flag, could amount to a war crime known as “perfidy.” The administration said the plane was reviewed for compliance and said the strike was “fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.”
Early last month, a US submarine sank an Iranian warship even though it wasn’t engaged in combat and was in international waters near Sri Lanka. Some experts argued that strike, without a declared war and the lack of a US effort to rescue survivors, could be legally problematic.
And by mid-March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a briefing said the US military would provide “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” Even merely threatening, “No quarter” — which means declining to show mercy to a surrendering foe — appears to be illegal under international law.
The progression of all of these events follows a familiar pattern for Trump. He floats something seemingly unthinkable until, over time, it becomes less unthinkable.
But nobody should lose sight of what’s happening here: An American president is threatening things that appear to be war crimes, and he’s done so even after people noted it could be illegal.
Following through could mean not only a remarkable escalation in the Iran war, but perhaps a long-lasting change in views of US morality on the world stage.
It would also mark a real shift in strategy, given Trump has spoken about the possibility of spurring Iran’s citizens to overthrow their government. Attacking Iran’s infrastructure in ways that hurt civilians for years to come could turn Iran’s population more against the United States.
(Trump claimed Monday without providing evidence that Iran’s citizens actually want such bombings because it could result in freedom.)
His repeated delays of the deadline seem to project some uneasiness with following through. But his administration has already conducted strikes in the Western Hemisphere that could be war crimes. And even if he declines to follow through in Iran, he still appears to have threatened war crimes as a bargaining chip.
And it’s not clear that he still has people around him (like Esper) who would dissuade him from taking those sorts of actions.
Either way, what’s pretty evident is that those six Democrats may have had a point.
