Donald Trump tweeted Saturday that while Iran leaders are talking about attacks on America to avenge Washington’s killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the U.S. has already chosen targets in Iran. Soleimani was a terrorist, Trump tweeted, responsible for the deaths of Americans and ...

....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

Bringing this down to the level of a blood feud by threatening to incinerate innocent Iranians because of their rotten leaders is a new low. Tying this twisted revenge for the 1979 taking of hostages to the destruction not just of military targets but also of Iranian cultural icons is barbaric. Even more so given that the vast percentage of Iranians alive today weren’t even born four decades ago, much less responsible for that action. But then what can be expected from the squatter in the White House who makes foreign policy via tweets and snubs? If Trump ever gets angry at Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, he’ll probably threaten to blow up the Hagia Sophia.

Let me put even a stronger point on this.

Any U.S. officials or personnel who followed through on this statement by President Trump would be liable under the U.S. War Crimes Act, 18 U.S. Code § 2441. pic.twitter.com/09XImnPWf8

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) January 4, 2020

Published with permission from Daily Kos.