Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth declared Friday that American forces will show “no quarter, no mercy” toward Iranian enemies, language that legal experts say violates prohibitions against war crimes established more than a century ago and codified in treaties the United States has signed.
The threat came as the conflict with Iran entered its third week, with at least 1,444 Iranians dead and millions displaced. A US strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran earlier this month killed over 170 people, most of them children, prompting senators to demand investigations and human rights monitors to question whether civilian protection measures are being abandoned.
“We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” Hegseth told reporters.
The Hague Convention and other international agreements make it illegal to threaten that captured or surrendering forces will not be spared. Domestic law including the 1996 War Crimes Act prohibits such policies, and US military manuals warn that “no quarter” declarations constitute crimes.
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, said Hegseth’s remarks appear to violate those standards. “These comments are very striking,” he said. “It raises questions about whether this belligerent, lawless rhetoric is being translated into how the war is being conducted on the battlefield.”
Prohibitions on denying quarter date back over a century as part of efforts to restrain conduct during armed conflict. The Nuremberg trials after World War II prosecuted Nazi officials in some cases for refusing to spare enemy forces who had surrendered. Finucane noted that merely announcing such a policy from a government position can itself constitute a war crime.
“The basic idea is that it’s both inhumane and counterproductive to execute people who have laid down their arms,” he said.
Hegseth has publicly dismissed concerns about international law, saying he would permit no “stupid rules of engagement” and no “politically correct wars.” His March 4 briefing emphasized lethality over restraint. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps,” he said, adding that President Donald Trump had granted warfighters maximum authorities. “Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”
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Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, called the rhetoric alarming. “I’ve been engaging with the US military for two decades, and I’m shocked by this language,” she said. “Rhetoric from senior leaders matters because it helps shape the command environment in which US forces operate. From an atrocity-prevention perspective, language that dismisses legal restraints is a serious red flag.”
The United States and Israel face accusations they violated international law when they launched strikes February 28 that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Experts have condemned the initial attack as unprovoked and deemed the conflict an illegal war of aggression.
Iranian officials protested after a US submarine sank the military vessel IRIS Dena off Sri Lanka’s coast as it returned from a ceremonial naval exercise in India, killing at least 84 people. While warships are legal military targets, Tehran said the ship was not fully armed, raising questions about whether it could have been intercepted rather than destroyed.
American forces reportedly declined to help rescue sailors from the Dena despite Geneva Convention requirements to assist the shipwrecked. The Sri Lankan navy ultimately collected survivors.
Hegseth described sinking the vessel as a “quiet death” and told reporters, “We are fighting to win.” Trump remarked that he had asked why the ship was sunk rather than captured. “One of my generals said, ‘Sir, it’s a lot more fun doing it this way,'” the president said.
The US military has faced decades of criticism for civilian casualties in operations including the so-called “global war on terror,” when airstrikes killed thousands of non-combatants. A 2008 attack on a wedding party in Afghanistan drew particular condemnation.
Before the Iran war, the Trump administration faced allegations it violated international law by attacking alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. At least 157 people have died in those operations since September 2, though the administration has never identified victims or presented evidence against them. Scholars have condemned the attacks as extrajudicial killings.
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A recent report from watchdog group Airwars found the pace of the US-Israeli assault on Iran far exceeds other modern military operations.
The United States dropped nearly $5.6 billion worth of munitions in the first two days alone. Airwars says American and Israeli forces hit more targets in the first 100 hours than in the first six months of the campaign against Islamic State.
Senator Jeff Merkley condemned Hegseth as a “dangerous amateur” following Friday’s remarks, citing the girls’ school attack as evidence of consequences. “His ‘no hesitation’ engagement rules set the stage for failing to distinguish a civilian school from a military target,” Merkley wrote on social media. “The result, more than 150 dead schoolgirls and teachers from an American missile.”