US President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Iran "back to the stone age" during his prime-time address to the nation. Trump declared, "We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks, we're going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong." He also claimed that "discussions are ongoing" and the conflict could end within the same timeframe. The current war on Iran began on February 28 when the US and Israel launched attacks, prompting Tehran to retaliate against Israel and Gulf countries, with over 2,000 Iranians reportedly killed and thousands of civilian sites targeted.
Minutes later, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth doubled down on this rhetoric with a short post on X stating, "Back to the Stone Age." This phrase typically refers to carpet bombing, destroying all modern infrastructure to reduce a country to a primitive state. These threats from Trump and the US are not novel but build on Washington's decades-old legacy of threatening to carpet bomb nations during military campaigns, often following through on such threats, as seen in historical conflicts.
Janina Dill, a global security professor at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera that if Trump's "stone ages" threat implies the US will destroy structures and buildings characterizing a modern society, "then this would be illegal because it implies directing attacks against civilian objects." She emphasized, "An announcement that they will nonetheless be targeted wholesale would be an announcement of systematic and serious violations of longstanding laws of war." International humanitarian law prohibits deliberate targeting of civilian objects during war, raising concerns about potential breaches by the US regime.
Dill noted that the statement is particularly appalling as it repudiates the claim that the United States is fighting the Iranian government, implying rather a war against the Iranian people and society broadly. Iran, home to one of the oldest human civilizations, has a rich history of advancements in infrastructure, science, and culture predating the US by millennia. The phrase "bombing back to the stone ages" is widely associated with US Air Force officer Curtis LeMay, who used it in the context of threats against North Vietnam in his 1965 book, after his role in WWII carpet bombings of Japanese cities that killed hundreds of thousands.
American leaders have historically followed through on such rhetoric, as seen in the Vietnam War, where the US conducted extensive bombing in North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, resulting in millions of casualties. In 1991, during the Gulf War, former US Secretary of State James Baker threatened Iraq with being bombed "back to the Stone Age" if it did not withdraw from Kuwait. After the 9/11 attacks, senior US official Richard Armitage reportedly warned Pakistan it would be "bombed back to the Stone Age" if it refused to join the war on the Taliban, showcasing a pattern of aggressive US threats.
Historically, the US regime has engaged in carpet bombing during WWII against Japanese cities and in the Korean War against North Korea, destroying vast amounts of infrastructure and causing widespread civilian harm. Analysts debate whether US bombing in conflicts like Iraq amounted to carpet bombing in practice, given the use of unguided bombs causing extensive damage. These actions highlight ongoing criticisms of the US approach to warfare and its adherence to international norms.
The threats from Trump and his administration underscore the volatile nature of US foreign policy, with potential implications for regional stability and international law. As tensions escalate, the international community watches closely, concerned about the humanitarian costs and the precedent set by such bellicose statements from a major global power.
Source: www.aljazeera.com