They did not manage to bomb Germany, North Korea, or North Vietnam into submission and they tried for years. Winning through bombing alone has never worked.
It would cause catastrophic economic damage to Iran, and given how politically unstable Iran currently is (millions of people rioted earlier this year), the regime would not survive the oncoming civil unrest.
It would be a humanitarian disaster, but from the US/Israel's point of view, it would be a victory. An Iran with no electricity has no capacity for industry, and has no ability to manufacture missiles, drones, or have a nuclear program.
Without ability to manufacture missiles, Iran would be unable coerce people to buy into it's Hormuz transit toll system, and the strait would reopen.
This weakened Iran would have no ability to produce nukes, close the strait, and make missiles; for at least a decade while they recover economically.
Committing an act of genocide against a country of 90+ million people would be the death of the US as we know it.
So no, it's not automatically a war crime, it's a case-by-case basis.
And claims of "genocide" from are laughable and ludicrous, the target is the IRGC, and regime change. If they wanted genocide there are far more effective ways to do so.
And yes, according to international law. No, you do not get to bomb desalination plants, eletricity plans, universities, hospitals, bridges and schools and claim "it is not a war crime because soldiers in area exist".
Iran is actively targeting:
1) Desalination plants (confirmed strikes) https://x.com/StealthQE4/status/2038421212435558429 https://x.com/EveryoneKnws1/status/2041843348613308922
2) Electricity generation facilities (multiple confirmed strikes) https://x.com/InsidConflict/status/2040604164527702153
3) Schools and Universities (targeted, no confirmed strikes yet) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/04/05/american-uni... https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-middle-east-news-u...
4) Bridges (targeted, no confirmed strikes yet) https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260402-iran-publishes-li...
Iran is also firing ballistic cluster munitions, which have no military purpose, at civilian areas, almost daily.
This is not what international law states. The Geneva Conventions forbid direct attacks on civilian assets. Where assets are dual-use, the principle of proportionality applies and your intent cannot be to cause suffering, destroy civilian morale, etc.
I think anyone with an ounce of human decency and who isn't playing keyboard warrior saw Trump's threat to destroy "a whole civilization" for what it was, which is why so many military and legal scholars were disturbed by it.
For those who actually care about what the law says instead of beating their chests:
https://www.justsecurity.org/135797/war-crimes-rhetoric-powe...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-hegseth-and...
You don't need missiles to keep Hormuz closed. Cheap drones, naval mines and such are enough, and those don't require that much production capabilities, especially if you get some help from Russia. It's enough to hit a ship every now and then, which keeps the insurers away.
Even without any infrastructure IRGC could wage a guerrilla war for a long time.
Japan: Not without total defeat on every front
It is highly urban country, where 75% of people live in modern cities. Cities cannot survive without a constant influx of food and water, both of which require electricity and fuel to be delivered. In the previous conflicts you mentioned over 50 years ago, Japan, North Korea and Vietnam had large rural populations that were less affected by access to electricity and fuel.
Also, consider how much of modern life now relies on vehicles and computers, which would be disrupted immediately if this conflict continues.
Regarding Germany, the allies did not focus on destroying German electrical infrastructure, they actually didn't consider it as a priority target. However, post-war analysis determined that if they performed a targeted bombing campaign on Germany's electrical generation, it would have significantly hampered Germany's industrial capacity, and pushed the war to a close months sooner.
"We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down"
- Adolf Hitler about invading the Soviet Union.
Again, I must reiterate my point: terror bombing has never ended a war. Post-war analysis also confirms that despite a very costly strategic bombing campaign, Germany tripled its production. Things fell apart when they lost men, ground, harvests and alloy mines to the Red Army. The war ended with the Soviets in Berlin, firing howitzers at government headquarters with open sights.
Perhaps the strategy that failed every single time so far will work if we ramp up the cruelty a few notches, but that's not a possibility I am excited about.
Here is where we disagree. And i think this is the only point which matters.
I agree with you that the US always had the ability to destroy Iranian civilian infrastructure. I agree with you that doing so would cause catastrophic economic damage, civilian unrest, regime overthrow etc. It would seriously disrupt their nuclear program for sure.
What it wouldn’t do is reopen the strait. As long as some ships pay the toll those monies can be used to pay the “warfighters” and their weapons. It is relatively cheap to do so. Ukraine demonstrated this with their unmanned surface vessels. This they can do even if the whole hinterland of Iran is in flames and turmoil.
In fact the more their economy collapses the more lucrative this coastal piracy “business” relatively to other opportunities becomes. People who “before the bombing” had better things to do will find that shaking down foreign ships is still doable “after the bombing”. Some of it will be out of ideology and hate for sure, destroying all the civilian infra of a country tends to whip up emotions in people. But fundamentally they can keep doing it because it is a business which pays.
And regime overthrow won’t help with this either. In the absence of a strong central coordinating force you might get multiple separate pirate outfits camping at different parts of the coast trying to take tolls. That obviously wouldn’t improve their economic success, but would increase chaos and hinder transportation even more.
In short while the USA could destroy Iran as a nation, doing so would not eliminate the threat to shipping in the region.
This situation is unacceptable for every other Gulf country. It may not be dealt with in the coming weeks, but will be addressed in the coming months, in a similar fashion to how Somali piracy was neutralized.
Also, a neutered Iran would not have the capability of producing anti-ship missiles, which is the primary enforcement mechanic of this toll.
If I'm not mistaken, the Obama administration was about to accomplish every single one of those goals with a treaty, which the Trump administration cancelled. Bombing a country into accepting terms that they had already agreed to is not that impressive.
This is very important because, population in cities is much more dependent on infrastructure, than rural population. Rural population is mostly self sufficient. Over 60% of Iranians live today in cities, but under 20% of Vietnamese lived in cities at the time of Vietnam war. Vietnam was also strongly supported by China, with transportation using Laos and Cambodian.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin...
Iran is even now under sever water crisis.
https://www.wri.org/insights/iran-war-water-crisis-middle-ea...
So a large scale bombing of all Iranian infrastructure would probable not cause the fall of the regime, because they have the guns and can take anything they want, but the suffering and famine of Iranian people would be enormous.
Sometimes large scale bombing causes submission, for example fire-bombing of Japanese cities (atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in the scale of destruction and loss of life comparable to Tokyo fire bombing, only much cheaper in the number of airplanes).
Bombing Britain failed. Bombing Germany failed (except for dragging the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition). Bombing Japan failed on its own until Japan had no navy left afloat, and the Russians savaged their army in China. The bomb accelerated a victory achieved through other means.
In Korea, Americans levelled cities and infrastructure until there was nothing left to bomb. That did not win the war.
In Vietnam, Linebacker failed. Linebacker II bought slightly more favourable terms for the US in negotiations, but in the end, North Vietnam won.
Even the Desert Storm curbstomp would not have worked without boots on the ground.
I'm just rehashing a better post on this exact topic: https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...
Yes bombing of Japan was a factor in surrender, but not the only one. Destruction of much industry, destruction of navy, all their allies were defeated. There were preparations for invasion of Japan or continuous atomic bombing, if Japan would not surrender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Shot
"Two more Fat Man assemblies were readied and scheduled to leave Kirtland Field for Tinian on 11 and 14 August"
"At Los Alamos Laboratory, technicians worked 24 hours straight to cast another plutonium core. Although cast, it still needed to be pressed and coated, which would take until 16 August. Therefore, it could have been ready for use on 19 August."
The rate of bomb production was one of the Manhattan Project’s most closely guarded secrets. Expected rate of production by General Groves:
"The production rate of 3 bombs per month in August was expected to rise to 5 bombs per month in November, and 7 bombs per month in December. In 1946, it could rise much higher."
https://www.dannen.com/decision/bomb-rate.html
As is written in: https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
"In Vietnam, the same problem complicated any effort at industrial bombing: the factories that supplied the North Vietnamese forces (both the regular PAVN and irregular NLF) were in China and especially the USSR. Moreover the population was not broadly dependent on centralized utilities (like electricity) which could be bombed."
The article tries to apply lesson from past bombing campaigns to war in Ukraine, but this don't apply because Russia could not establish air supremacy over Ukraine and could not apply large scale heavy bombing. And I hope that they never will...