The Hill: Crow urges US service members to ‘follow the law’ if ordered to carry out strikes on Iranian civilians

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) on Tuesday urged U.S. service members to “follow the law” if directed to strike Iranian civilians targets, after President Trump issued a dire threat to Iran earlier in the day.

“Well, it’s a war crime. It’s a very clear war crime,” Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told host Kasie Hunt on CNN’s “The Arena.” “If [Trump] attempts to follow through on it, my message to the military servicemen and women that would have to follow through on those orders is they have an obligation to follow the Constitution and they have an obligation to follow the law.”

On Tuesday morning, the president wrote on his Truth Social platform, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” referring to Iran. 

Trump has imposed a deadline of 8 p.m. EDT for the Iranian government to lift restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure has rocked the global oil industry and caused gas prices in the U.S. to surpass $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022, according to AAA.

“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World,” the president continued Tuesday. “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Back in November, Crow and five other Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds — Reps. Chris Deluzio (Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (N.H.) and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), along with Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) — recorded a video urging members of the military and intelligence community to refuse illegal orders. 

The video was released amid ongoing U.S. strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, as well as Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to multiple Democratic-run cities, including Washington, D.C. 

Trump called the lawmakers’ remarks “seditious behavior,” while U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro unsuccessfully sought a grand jury indictment of the lawmakers for their rhetoric. Kelly, a retired Navy captain, is also embroiled in a legal fight with the Pentagon over its efforts to censure him and lower his retirement rank for his participation in the video.

But Crow said he and his fellow Democrats recorded the video “for exactly this type of instance,” amid the war with Iran. Intentional attacks against civilians that are not taking part in hostilities and structures that are not military targets qualify as war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.  

“If they are ordered to do something that is a crime, that kills civilians, that destroys civilian infrastructure, [then] they have an obligation to follow the law,” Crow added, referring to U.S. service members. 

“There are instances where it is very clear that something is not a military objective. If you’re asked to target civilians, if you’re asked to kill women and children, you’re asked to kill noncombatants, you’re asked to bomb a school, you’re asked to bomb a civilian power plant, that would be a war crime,” the Colorado Democrat added, when Hunt asked him whom in the military he is urging to refuse illegal orders. 


“If they’re put in the position of bombing a civilian target, that would be unlawful and they shouldn’t do it,” he later clarified.