The prospect of "nuclear genocide" hangs over Iran after President Donald Trump weighed at the United Nations whether to "annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly," experts warned.
National security analyst Joseph Cirincione made that case Friday in an essay for New Lines Magazine.
"When he addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, President Donald Trump was absolutely clear that he was threatening to kill every man, woman and child in Iran — all 92 million of them," Cirincione, the author of "Nuclear Nightmares," wrote.
"Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?" Trump asked world leaders after floating a deal that would let Iran "rebuild," according to a transcript of the speech.
"Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?" he continued.
"[T]he only way to do this 'quickly' is by using nuclear weapons. There is simply no other way to kill that many people," Cirincione wrote.
"As president, he has the sole, unfettered ability to launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants. … Trump can pick up the phone, issue an order, and in five minutes missiles would be flying," Cirincione continued.
"President Trump's statement to the United Nations clearly constitutes an implied threat to use overwhelming nuclear force against Iran and the Iranian people broadly," Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement Tuesday.
"This would be a nuclear genocide. Any threat to use nuclear weapons is unacceptable, and his decision to do so should be strongly condemned by government, military and civil society leaders," she added.
"But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election," Trump said in the same speech, moments after the threat.
"Though it may be tempting to write this off as just another bombastic speech, the public must read President Trump's words, and consider their true meaning and the real human impacts of nuclear war," Drozdenko warned.
"Such rhetoric is not merely reckless, it is a criminal threat of genocide against an entire nation," said Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, who called Trump's comments "dangerously unhinged" in a statement reported by Common Dreams.
"I was worried when I heard a leader of a great power saying that he is considering annihilating a country. I mean, this is clearly a massive violation of the whole principle of the U.N.," Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told Politico.
"It's one thing to make genocidal threats against a nation on social media. It's another thing to do it from the podium of the UN," Maryam Jamshidi, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School, wrote on X, according to Common Dreams.
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again," Trump wrote on Truth Social on April 7, in a post that Amnesty International warned, "may constitute a threat to commit genocide."
"My question is if and when do I blow the entire nation up? They better behave," Trump told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst in a phone call two days before the speech, The Hill reported.
Trump later said U.S. envoys spent three hours meeting with Iranian officials on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering, NBC News reported.