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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> rockets are still hitting much of their infrastructure anyway

As has been extensively discussed over the past week, hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.

They lost some military hardware they couldn't have deployed anyway, they have a bunch of holes in runways that they'll fill within the week. They lost their head of state and a bunch of miscellaneous leaders, but it turns out their chain of command was robust. It's gotten stronger for the stress and unity, not weaker.

No, we have to take the L here. The USA went to war with Iran and got its ass kicked. We achieved nothing useful in the short term, and made things much (much) worse for our interests in the long term.

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> As has been extensively discussed over the past week, hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.

I agree, but want to add that the threat of hitting civilian targets is itself a war crime, so there's a pretty solid case that we already did over the last few days:

"Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." -Article 51(2) AP1 to Geneva Conventions

> threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population

If Trump's tweet meets this bar, it's a meaningless rule. The purpose wasn't to scare civilians. It was to scare Iran's leadership. What it probably wound up doing was scaring American leadership into talking the President down from his ledge.

Cool that's a nice workaround of the Geneva conventions - any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy! The law tends not to be friendly to such workarounds in my experience, especially if it's trivially easy to enact ("be in negotiations"). Or perhaps you can help me understand what distinguishes this situation in the way you suggest.

> any threat you make while negotiations are underway is actually a negotiation strategy

No, I'm saying there is no evidence the threat was made "to spread terror among the civilian population." If the threshold is just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians, then the rule is meaningless. Whether it's done during negotiations is irrelevant.

I don't have a crystal ball into Trump and Hegseth's minds. But I don't get the sense the threats were aimed at the civilian population. Instead, they were aimed at leadership.

Ah. Didn't he threaten to destroy every power plant and bridge in the country? Do you not find this threat credible? I think the US military is capable of it and obviously that's a threat against the lives of civilians. But it's not a war crime if it's "aimed" at the leaders or because Trump generally bloviates something like that? Any explanation I come up with is exactly the kind of legal workaround I'm talking about.

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will,"

> "just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians"

I think we just may be working with totally different perspectives on this since I'm struggling to see this the same way as you.

He does, he's unhinged and no one from his government / chain of command is willing to stop him.

He doesn't sound dangerous because he's cunning and smart, he's unpredictable because he's demented and his court is fine with it.

Funny how the smart people in the room sometimes turn out to be right.

> hitting civilian infrastructure with rockets (or otherwise) is a war crime, and we aren't doing it.

I mean there is no world policeman that’s going to stop Trump. While I agree with you on the practicality of the situation, we have been on tenterhooks all day exactly because Trump can dramatically escalate this if he wants. It’s just that that escalation will be extremely painful in all sorts of ways, especially if Iran wipes out the oil production infrastructure.

My point here isn’t to “pick a side.” I obviously think this whole escapade was unwise. My point is only to point out that the bargaining frictions point to continuing the conflict.

Iran is happier to delay because the oil crisis is about to hit America. Trump is happy to delay because he can always launch a strike tomorrow, and concessions via existing infrastructure breakdown, or improve his position with intelligence, and this may prevent a more serious oil crisis.

That means both parties see opportunity in maintaining the status quo.

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