Donald Trump isn’t concerned about his war crimes – is it too late to stop him?

There is a strong case for saying that, in his already unlawful war against Iran, not only is Donald Trump contemplating committing war crimes, but also that he has already done so. The more vexing question is what, or who, is able to stop him?

Having announced last week that he intends to bomb Tehran “back to the Stone Ages”, and that “all hell will reign down” [sic] if it doesn’t “open the f***ing Strait [of Hormuz]” and do whatever else he demands, Trump has doubled down on his threat ahead of his 8pm Tuesday deadline for the trade route to reopen: “The entire country can be taken out in one night,” he says. “I hope I don’t have to do it. I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it will happen over a period of four hours if we want it to.”

Plainly, attacking civilian targets for no other reasons than to terrorise the civilian population and endanger their lives is a war crime. Yet Trump insists that power plants, bridges, desalination plants and the oil industry will all be US targets.

These are not military installations, nor does destroying them serve any military purpose in the war as it is being conducted. These are gratuitous acts of savagery by one power, they will involve unnecessary civilian casualties and harm, and the very threat of such bombardment is itself a crime against the rules of law, the Geneva Conventions (which America has mostly signed up to), US law and generally accepted moral standards in the conduct of military operations.

What’s more, so far as the Iranian military are concerned, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence, has struck an equally reckless and sadistic attitude to the treatment. Rightly, he has been widely condemned on similar moral and legal grounds as has Trump for his words apparently encouraging US forces to take no prisoners, in defiance not only of the Christian quality of mercy for his pseudo-war, but, again, the Geneva Conventions.

Hegseth, not an obviously pious man, yesterday actually prayed to God that American forces would use “overwhelming violence against those who deserve no mercy”. Not long ago he infamously declared that “we will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies”. Legally, “no quarter” means refusing to take prisoners and killing wounded or surrendering enemy combatants.

Trump naturally loves all this. It’s not what America is supposed to do. The US service personnel shot down in Iran were lucky to get out, because the Iranians might not have given any quarter to them.

In short, no previous US administration and no leader, civilian or military, has revelled in cruelty against innocent humanity in the way that Trump and his associates do, adding profanity to the mix just to debase themselves further. Dwight Eisenhower, either as president or commander, didn’t say anything like his air force would carry on “bombing our little hearts out”, or that he’d bomb oil refineries “just for fun”. We are talking atrocities here, ordered by the United States government with obscene glee. Trump’s justification is that “they’re animals”, which actually says it all.

He may himself be showing signs of a new strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome – one that attacks the host – but who’s going to do something about it? Probably no one.

The media can’t stop him, and Congress and the courts, which Trump either controls or influences, won’t. The military could, but they are currently being purged, Stalin-style.

The president seems immune to impeachment because he largely controls his party’s members of Congress via the Maga movement – although his grip is not as firm as it was, and the November midterm elections might further weaken his position.

For now, the Constitution could assist in another way, but it would require the vice president and the cabinet, comprised of cronies and high priests in the Cult of Trump, to act. As so often in both Trump presidencies, there is talk of Article 25, which allows for the forced removal of a president in case of, in Trump’s case, mental incapacity.

It’s hard to argue that what Trump has been doing is rational, based on his unhinged public appearances, illogical arguments, unhinged acts and language, and deranged statements, often contradicting himself within minutes. He doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing, in any sense of the term. But to get an elected president out is rightly, as Richard Nixon noted, a deliberately difficult process and a lengthy and involved one, all of which is to the advantage of Trump.

To lead a palace coup would be down to the likes of Marco Rubio, who always looks like a hostage, and JD Vance – and they won’t. Rubio is still a more conventional type of Republican, who once warned what a disaster Trump would be, but he lacks a following. Vance has more gumption, and has shown some small signs of independence of thought. He, too, has ambition, and Trump cannot sack him, but, again, he looks an unlikely rebel.

The most likely course is that Americans continue to live under a deranged president destroying their economy and their alliances, grifting his way to the end of his term of office under the constant but inconclusive threat of removal through impeachment. The US knew what they were getting when they voted for him a second time – and they, and the rest of us, are stuck with him.

Happy 250th birthday, America.