Brian Finucane, Senior Adviser on the US Programme at the International Crisis Group, has told Reuters that US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post could be interpreted as a “threat to commit suicide”.

Before joining the Crisis Group in 2021, Finucane served as legal adviser at the State Department, including on the use of military force.

“Trump’s threat that ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again,’ could plausibly be interpreted as a threat to commit genocide,“ Finucane has said.

He adds that under international and US law, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.“

Finucane adds, “Trump may well hope this threat pressures Iran in ongoing negotiations. But the risk of Trump escalating US attacks on Iran — causing grave harm to Iran’s population and sparking further counter-escalation — is very real.”