Trump’s rap sheet is long, but this may be his worst crime

Although few bother to point it out, Donald Trump has just committed a crime much worse than all the others on his rap sheet.

It is the war crime of aggression – the “supreme” war crime, according to the judgment at Nuremberg. It is constituted by using armed force against a fellow United Nations member with such “character, gravity and scale” that it manifestly violates the UN Charter prohibition on one member country attacking another.

President Donald Trump addresses the nation after America’s attack on Iran.Credit: AP

A “spectacular military success” the bunker bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities may have been, but it was, as a matter of international law, no different from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine or the George W. Bush/Tony Blair/John Howard invasion of Iraq. These are all cases of a fundamental breach of the world order agreed after the last war and likely to encourage emulation – next stop, Taiwan.

This is not about saving Iran, or the danger of making Putin look better. If any government in the world deserves to be destroyed, it is the mullahs without mercy in Iran. Many of them were involved in the mass slaughter of political prisoners in 1988 – the worst crime against helpless POWs since the Japanese death marches – and ever since, their record of killing peaceful protesters, women and dissidents, by hanging and shooting, has been disgusting. Iran has bankrolled terrorist organisations and waged propaganda wars against the Big (US) and Little (UK) Satan, but it has not invaded Israel or done anything to America to justify its aggression.

Were some hypothetical war crimes court ever to get its hands on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it would reduce his sentence by taking Iranian provocation into account – but the man would still be guilty as charged. He could not argue self-defence, which requires the threat defended against to be reasonably proximate. The threat of Iran building and using nukes is much further away than the threat of Israeli submarines, said to be already stationed within range of Tehran, rising to strike.

Iranian protesters hold up posters showing the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (centre) and the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini after US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.Credit: AP

It is not even clear that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon – several dozen countries also signatory to the nuclear weapons treaty by which they forswear any such development could build nukes within a few months.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not blown the whistle in any definitive way, as claimed by the Australian government and nor has the UK or our European allies. And just like Saddam Hussein’s mythical “weapons of mass destruction” there is no reason to think Iran has completed a project that was, in fact, started under the shah in the 1970s.

Only last week, in the tone of an American gangster, Trump said in effect to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “we know where you live”, but he promised the cleric he would be safe “for now” and gave him two weeks. He bombed three days later. (This is a man on whose word Australia has just made a massive down-payment for AUKUS.)

The true disaster of Trump’s attack is that it is another nail in the coffin of the rules-based world order that provided some protection for international peace and security since it was put in place in 1945.

Credit: Matt Golding

For all the great minds who contributed (one of the greatest being that of Dr H. V. Evatt), it is now out of date and unfit for its purpose declared in the UN Charter to stop the slaughter of war. The General Assembly is a mere talking shop whilst all power resides in the permanently poleaxed Security Council, which cannot function because of the big power veto.

Resolutions for peace in Ukraine are vetoed by Russia, for peace in Gaza are vetoed by America on behalf of Israel, and any resolution to condemn the bombing of Iran will, of course, be vetoed by the US, presumably with the support of Australia.

Besides, the problem with Iran goes far beyond its quest for nuclear weapons. It’s a conflict between the rights of its people and the wrongs of its fascist religious dictatorship. That is a conflict that only its people can resolve, however much the West may wish to help.

Donald Trump, that man of many indictments, has already made a mockery of US law, from which his Supreme Court has declared him immune. He will now make a mockery of international law as well.

Geoffrey Robertson, KC AO, is an expert in international and human rights law. He is the author of Mullahs without Mercy (Biteback 2014) and Crimes Against Humanity (Penguin 2024).

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