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IS TRUMP’S THREAT TO DESTROY IRANIAN CIVILIZATION AN UNPRECEDENTED THREAT?

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President Donald Trump’s seemingly genocidal threat to wipe out Iranian civilization if it doesn’t comply with his list of demands has ignited a mushroom cloud of bipartisan denunciations including from many of his most prominent supporters.

Some call him mad. Some say they fear he is now the antithesis of Ulysses Grant who said: “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any fondness for war.” There are fears that Trump enjoys his new, dominant military role on the world stage. Too much.

At issue is Trump’s declaration on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” The Iranian response? It has cut off direct communication with the United States, although there are reports of some talks now going on which Iran steadfastly denies.

Is this a real threat prefacing a literal plan, or is it coercive brinksmanship? And is it unprecedented for a world leader to threaten to exterminate an entire civilization?

This seems like apocalyptic strongman rhetoric meant to force capitulation–but history shows that once leaders start talking this way in an active war, the line between bluff and intentional or unintentional catastrophe gets perilously thinner. Deterrent or hyperbolic rhetoric is risky because it can lead to miscalculation, normalize extreme thinking and box leaders into harder positions politically. In ancient and ideological conflicts this kind of rhetoric ended in real destruction. In the nuclear age its more about miscalculation, escalation, misinterpretation and unintended consequences.

When rhetoric turned into real destruction:

1. Ideological or existential wars (highest risk)

Adolf Hitler. Rhetoric: Jews and others must be exterminated. Outcome: The Holocaust led to the systematic genocide of 6 million Jews.

Rwandan Genocide: Leaders and media called for extermination which resulted in 800,000 killed in 100 days.

Cambodian Genocide:Radical ideological purge or “impure” elements that ended in 1.7 million deaths.

2. Ancient & pre-modern conquest (very high follow-through)

Genghis Khan: Threats of annihilation were often carried out if resisted. Whole cities were destroyed to send a message.

Third Punic War: Rome eliminated Carthage as a rival civilization. In eras without international norms “destroy them” meant precisely that.

When rhetoric was mostly deterrence or bluff:

3. Nuclear era threats (very high rhetoric, low execution

COLD WAR:
Both sides had the capacity to destroy each other’s civilization. Leaders made extreme threats–but didn’t act directly.

So when does rhetoric trigger real destruction? When there’s a strong ideological component (racial, religious, revolutionary), dehumanization (“They’re not people”), weak or no international constraints, and internal control (authoritarian regimes).

David Frum in The Atlantic:

The language is ferocious, reminiscent of Kaiser Wilhelm II when he called for German troops to act like King Attila’s merciless Huns in avenging the 1900 assassination of a German ambassador to China: “Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken!” That speech did not gain Germany the respect craved by its psychologically fragile ruler. It alarmed the whole world—and earned German soldiers the derogatory nickname of “Huns” in the two world wars that followed.

There is little question that American power can inflict hideous pain on the people of Iran, the very people whom Trump in January promised, “Help is on the way.” Like Wilhelm, Trump may also inflict generational discredit on the good name of the armed forces he commands.

But the thing Trump most wants to do—extract a face-saving deal from Iran before he wrecks the world economy and Republican electoral chances along with it—remains beyond his reach. The more brutally Trump speaks, the more frantic he looks.