Trump has issued explicit threats to bomb Iranian civilian infrastructure.
The legality and effectiveness of targeting civilian infrastructure for war objectives are being debated.
Historical precedents suggest that bombing civilian infrastructure does not guarantee political concessions.
Atlas AI
Donald Trump has threatened to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants, tying the warning to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz. On Easter Sunday, he posted that Iran would face “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” and added “you’ll be living in Hell” unless the waterway reopened. On Monday, he repeated the threat on Truth Social, writing: “A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. ”
The threats have revived debate about both the legality and the effectiveness of bombing campaigns aimed at disabling civilian infrastructure. The source material notes such strikes are widely viewed as a war crime, and frames the central question as whether this approach would achieve any war objectives. It also notes uncertainty over timing, including the possibility that Trump could push back his deadline again.
Recent and historical examples cited in the source material are used to question whether infrastructure attacks reliably produce political capitulation. During Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli aircraft struck the Jiyeh power station north of Sidon. The fire was visible for miles, and damaged storage tanks leaked an estimated 15,000 tonnes of oil into the eastern Mediterranean, described as the largest spill in that sea.
Israel also hit motorway bridges, destroying spans and leaving roads cratered; a ceasefire was later signed, but Hezbollah survived and re-armed quickly.
The source material also points to Ukraine’s experience under sustained Russian bombardment over four years, describing this year as bringing Kyiv’s worst winter of blackouts as heating and power facilities were hit. It says those attacks did not force Ukraine to concede. The broader history of strategic bombing is described as contested, including Britain’s 1942 shift toward “area bombing” intended to weaken the morale of the “enemy civil population.”
Further examples include the US Rolling Thunder campaign against North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, which the source material says did not succeed in persuading Hanoi to withdraw its intervention in the south. ”
Two analysts cited in the source material expressed scepticism about Trump’s approach. Writing in the Interpreter, former Australian general Mick Ryan said Iran’s political identity is built around resistance to American coercion and that “Bridge and Power Plant Day” is unlikely to change Tehran’s strategic calculus or reopen the strait of Hormuz, while providing the Iranian government a powerful propaganda tool.
Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, wrote on X that the United States lacks a credible military option to force Iran into submission and argued that pressure alone is not a strategy.