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War & Peace
Watchdog Warns Trump Threat Against Iran Could Unleash 'Fatal Nuclear Disaster'
“To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” said the head of Beyond Nuclear.
Apr 07, 2026
Sustainable energy watchdog Beyond Nuclear on Tuesday issued a dire warning about President Donald Trump potentially creating a "fatal nuclear disaster" by ordering military strikes on Iran's nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr.
The group noted that the 1,000-megawatt Russian-built water-water energetic reactor (VVER) at the Bushehr facility is the same design as nuclear reactors in Ukraine that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned could spark a humanitarian catastrophe if struck by Russian missiles.
Beyond Nuclear commented that there hasn't been nearly as much attention paid by the international community to the risks posed by a US or Israeli strike on the Bushehr plant, which it cautioned has "highly radioactive uranium fuel inside the reactor" that is "stored in cooling pools and on-site casks."
"Any extended loss of power caused by an attack or a direct hit could see the fuel overheat and ignite, potentially leading to explosions," the group explained. "The resulting radiological releases would result in long-lasting radioactive fallout affecting vast areas in Iran, neighboring countries, and beyond, contaminating agricultural land as well as sea water, an essential drinking water source for a region that relies on desalination."
Beyond Nuclear's warning came days after the IAEA issued an assessment of military strikes that took place near the Bushehr reactor. Although the agency found that the facility itself so far has suffered no damage from US-Israeli strikes, it warned that any attack that even comes close to striking the nuclear reactor risks calamity.
Trump for the last several days has been threatening to attack Iran's energy infrastructure, which Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear, said "would be a war crime."
“The Geneva Convention specifically defines a war crime to include hitting facilities that, if damaged or destroyed, would result in extensive loss of noncombatant life,” Pentz Gunter said. “A commercial nuclear power plant certainly falls into this category.”
On Tuesday morning, the president delivered his most bloodthirsty threat to Iran yet, declaring that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” unless Iran met his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed to most ship traffic for the last several weeks after Trump and Israel launched an unprovoked war.
Ryan Goodman, professor at New York University School of Law, noted in a social media post that Trump's mere threat violates the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit "acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population."
Pentz Gunter also took a shot at Trump's brazen threats against Iran's energy infrastructure.
"To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” she said. “And even though we know Iran’s nuclear facilities were merely the pretext for the US-Israeli attack, we must remember that it was President Trump during his first term who effectively tore up a perfectly effective nuclear inspection and verification agreement—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—that ensured Iran stayed within the boundaries of a civil nuclear program."
Three physicians organizations on Tuesday—Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Human Rights, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—issued a joint declaration condemning Trump's threats to bomb Iranian power plants, highlighting the particular dangers of any attack on nuclear facilities.
"The bombings of nuclear power plants are illegal under international law and risk harmful radioactive contamination of the environment, posing long-term danger to the health of surrounding communities and ecosystems," the groups said. "We unequivocally condemn this pattern of strikes near and on nuclear facilities, including attacks by Israel and Iran in late March and another deadly attack near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant this weekend."
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AOC Among Lawmakers Saying US Troops 'Must Disobey' Trump Order to Destroy Iranian Civilization
"We can still stop this," said one think tank.
Apr 07, 2026
As US lawmakers and the international community registered President Donald Trump's threat to commit genocide in Iran on Tuesday, rights advocates demanded action from Trump's Cabinet, congressional leaders, and the country's European allies to take action—while US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a reminder that the president can be stopped by a lack of action as well, if those in the US military chain of command refuse to carry out his orders.
Trump's threat to wipe out Iran's civilization of 93 million people "merits removal from office," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). "To every individual in the president’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) also addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman, Dan Caine, has been joining Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in briefings recently as Hegseth has made bellicose threats against Iran and portrayed the unprovoked US-Israeli assault as a holy war.
Lieu reminded the top military leaders that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and federal law prohibit war crimes.
"Obviously eradicating a whole civilization constitutes a war crime. You must disobey that order," said the congressman. "If you commit war crimes, the next administration will prosecute you."
Erik Sperling, executive director of think tank Just Foreign Policy, called on Senate and House Democrats, including those on committees that oversee the armed services and foreign relations, to make Lieu's threat "absolutely clear."
"We can still stop this," said Just Foreign Policy on social media.
Journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News added that federal laws prohibiting war crimes "will apply in January 2029," after Trump is out of office.
Since Trump took office for his second term in January 2025, Democratic lawmakers have previously issued reminders to the US military that the UCMJ prohibits service members from carrying out illegal orders, with six House members and senators releasing a video in November—as the Pentagon was continuing its bombings of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean and threatening to attack Venezuela—to remind them, "You must refuse illegal orders."
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) was among the lawmakers who participated in the video. On Tuesday the former CIA analyst addressed service members across the military once again, warning that "targeting civilians en masse would be a clear violation of the law of armed conflict as laid out in the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Pentagon's Law of War Manual."
"If [service members] are today or have been asked to do things that violate the law and their training, it puts them in very real legal jeopardy. I know that our service members up and down the chain of command know their duty and the law to refuse illegal orders," said Slotkin. "It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops—especially those in command—will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders.
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'This Is Just Not How the Human Race Should Operate,' Says US Senator of Trump Threat
"Would you be able to live with yourself," asked Sen. Chris Murphy, "if you threatened your neighbor's child with murder in order to get your neighbor to behave the way you wanted?"
Apr 07, 2026
US Sen. Chris Murphy said Tuesday that President Donald Trump's genocidal threat to wipe Iran off the map doesn't just run afoul of domestic and international legal statutes—it is, the Democratic lawmaker argued, "fundamentally evil."
"This is a war crime, what the president is proposing," Murphy (Conn.) said in a two-minute video posted to social media after Trump threatened to destroy the "whole civilization" of Iran if it doesn't reach a deal with the US to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"That is pure evil," the senator said of Trump's threat, which the president issued on his Truth Social platform. "But even if he doesn't go through with it, even if Iran agrees to a deal, this is just not how the human race should operate—compelling others' behavior under the threat of murder of innocent people."
"Would you be able to live with yourself," asked Murphy, "if you threatened your neighbor's child with murder in order to get your neighbor to behave the way you wanted?"
Watch:
In an age of creeping relativism, a universal moral law still exists.
Threatening to end an entire civilization of 90 million people in order to bend a nation’s conduct to your will is grossly morally wrong. It is evil. And we should say this loudly. pic.twitter.com/oRU1rVgLrv
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 7, 2026
Trump's threat to escalate his illegal assault by waging total war on Iranian society sparked a wave of condemnations from lawmakers, legal scholars, and human rights advocates who demanded immediate deescalation and a lasting end to the conflict. The threat against the nation of more than 90 million people also prompted growing calls for the US president's removal from office.
But Trump's genocidal remarks were also seen as the most glaring evidence yet of the dire threat the US president and his enablers pose to all of humanity.
"This is a nightmare scenario," said US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), one of two Iranian Americans in Congress. "It's apocalyptic."
Rep. Ansari: "Donald Trump is trying to normalize language that essentially threatening genocide, threatening the potential use of nuclear weapons ... how is nobody trying to restrain this madman who is trying to get all of us killed. We have mechanisms to restrain him that are… pic.twitter.com/IVvIYlYvbr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 7, 2026
US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement that "with each passing day, it becomes increasingly apparent that Donald Trump is unstable and a clear and present danger, not just to the American people but to the world."
"He must be removed from office before he causes incalculable and unfathomable harm," Markey added. "His threats cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric. This is as grave a moment as the world has faced in the nuclear era.”
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Historian Among Those Warning Countries That Have Aided Trump's Iran Assault 'Will Come to Regret It'
"One of the biggest implications of this war is how badly Europe miscalculated," said one analyst.
Apr 07, 2026
As President Donald Trump made his most explicitly genocidal threat yet against Iran on Tuesday, one historian based in Tehran suggested that countries which have aided and abetted the rapidly intensifying US-Israeli assault on the Middle Eastern country are coming face-to-face with the fact that appeasing Trump has been a grave error.
Trump's threat that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again"—referring to Iran's population of 93 million people—was the "textbook definition of genocide," said Narjes Rahmati. "Those who could have intervened but did not will come to regret it."
Trump has lashed out at numerous European countries for being insufficiently supportive of the US-Israeli war, which has killed more than 2,000 people in Iran, nearly 1,500 in Lebanon, and hundreds across the Middle East, but countries including the United Kingdom have provided various support to the US and Israel since they abruptly cut off diplomatic talks and began bombing the country in February.
While UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has attempted to distance his government from the conflict, saying, "This is not our war," the UK has allowed US bombers to use British military bases for "defensive" missions. Late last month the UK also authorized the US to use military bases for strikes against Iranian missile sites that were targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The country has ramped up its military resources in the region in recent weeks.
Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats Party in the UK, said Tuesday that Starmer and his Labour government face "a choice" about continuing to back the US and Israel in light of Trump's latest threat on what the president previously referred to as "Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day."
"The UK must immediately and unequivocally suspend support for the US military," added Zack Polanski, the British Green Party leader. "The government have tried to appease him, then they tried to say they're standing up to him. Words aren't enough—it's time for action."
Philippe Dam, European Union director for Human Rights Watch, also condemned the European Commission for its tepid response to Trump's threat against "a whole civilization."
Anitta Hipper, foreign affairs spokesperson for the commission, said it rejects threats to attack critical civilian infrastructure, warning that "such attacks risk impacting millions of people across the Middle East and beyond, and also may lead to further dangerous escalation."
Dam warned that "international law is eroded by those who flout it as much as by those who fail to speak up."
"Despite renewed threats of attacks on civilian infrastructures in Iran—would be war crimes and possible crimes against humanity—EU leaders still fail to name USA and Israel in their statements," said Dam.
The US has also received varying degrees of military support from Portugal, Italy, Germany, and France, though the French and Italian governments have angered Trump in recent weeks by blocking the US from using certain military bases and barring military flights from French airspace. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez has stood out among North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders, leading the way in refusing to allow the US to use its bases for Iran attacks.
Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, said European leaders over the last several weeks "had [a] real chance to help make diplomacy succeed. Instead, they aligned with and enabled Trump’s worst instincts."
Adil Haque, a Rutgers University law professor and executive editor of Just Security, called on "all states" to "immediately condemn Trump's threat; deny the use of their territory and airspace by US forces to attack Iran; demand an immediate, unconditional, and permanent end to the war."
"Hormuz can be dealt with separately," he said, referring to Iran's closure of the strait, a key trade waterway. "Enough is enough."
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