US Media: Has Trump's America Become a Rogue State?

Picture this: Iran infiltrates agents into Mexico, fires missiles at American bases from the Texas border, and "accidentally" destroys a nearby school, killing 175 people, most of them children. Iran then bombs American fuel depots, raining toxic chemicals on civilians. Its forces keep striking residential neighborhoods, schools, and clinics, while its leaders warn that "death, fire, and fury" will pulverize the United States so completely it can never rebuild.


New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently posed these questions in a column, then answered them himself: the American president and all Americans would howl at such "outrageous attacks on innocent civilians."


The bitter irony: in every one of those hypotheticals, the perpetrator and victim have swapped places. The country doing all of this is the United States of America, self-proclaimed defender of civilization.


After World War II, the international community tried to bring warfare under the constraints of civilization. The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols explicitly ban the destruction of infrastructure civilians depend on to survive, including water supplies. The United States was the principal architect and champion of that so-called "rules-based international order."


Documented Attacks, Deliberate Destruction

But under President Trump, that veneer is being stripped away by the very hands that stitched it together. Since the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran began，a U.S. strike hit an Iranian elementary school on February 28, killing more than 170 people; U.S. forces targeted a desalination plant that supplied water to 30 villages; others suffered from U.S. military attacks included more than 17,000 homes, 65 schools, and 14 medical centers, as reported by 
The Iranian Red Crescent.

Oona Hathaway, a Yale Law School scholar and incoming president of the American Society of International Law, said the U.S. strikes lacked UN authorization and any credible self-defense justification, and thus allegedly violated international law. Former war crimes prosecutor David Crane lamented that the world is entering an 'era of lawless conflict,' one propelled, in no small part, by the United States itself.


Even more chilling: this is not about 'accidents' or 'collateral damage.' It is a deliberate threat and a strategic shift, and it comes from the very top.


Trump publicly threatened to “make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back”, declaring that 'death, fire, and fury will reign upon them.' Defense Secretary Hegseth denounced the 'ridiculous rules of engagement' meant to protect civilians and shut down the Pentagon office responsible for enforcing them. Senator Lindsey Graham boasted that the United States would bomb Iran into oblivion.

Allies Recoil, Strategy Backfires

Military strategy scholar Phillips O'Brien put it plainly: 'One could argue that Trump is threatening to commit one of the greatest war crimes in history.' When a nation's leader openly vows to leave an adversary 'unable to rebuild, ever,' when his defense secretary dismisses civilian protection rules as 'ridiculous,' and when schools, water facilities, and hospitals are systematically destroyed, the question writes itself: what exactly separates this from the 'rogue state' conduct these same leaders have long condemned?


Even America's closest allies couldn't stomach it. Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez called the war 'reckless and illegal.' Switzerland's defense minister said the U.S. strikes violated international law. Former French Prime Minister de Villepin went further, condemning them as 'illegal, illegitimate, ineffective, and dangerous' and calling for sanctions.


Yet this costly war is lurching toward an absurd conclusion. It has failed to topple the Iranian regime and may have hardened it instead. With American 'assistance,' the young Mojtaba Khamenei has succeeded his father killed in the strikes, as Supreme Leader. A source close to the White House put it with resignation: 'You killed his father and his wife. Do you think he'll be more rational, or less?'

Meanwhile, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed up global oil prices, threatened fertilizer supplies, and sent the bill for America's 'fury' to the rest of the world. Retired U.S. four-star General Wesley Clark put it simply: the war 'is going off the rails.'


America Drives the World Lawless

Who is driving the world to 'slide into a world where there are no rules anymore'?


To close his piece, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reached for a chilling line. German Vice Chancellor Klingbeil: 'We are sliding into a world where there are no rules anymore.' Kristof's verdict: the United States is one of the leading drivers of that slide.


The spectacle is stark, and the irony sharper still. The nation that once cast itself as the 'world's policeman' and preached a 'rules-based order' at every diplomatic turn is now using its most advanced fighter jets, its most precise missiles, and its highest-level threats to blow those very rules apart. It arms allies who strike civilians in Gaza. It reduces schools and water facilities to rubble in Iran. It shouts 'protect civilians' with one breath, then dismantles the very institutions responsible for doing so with the next.


Tom Fletcher, the UN's head of humanitarian affairs, put it plainly: “The rules-based scaffolding meant to restrain the worst excesses of war is cracking.” The fracture starts in Washington. Trump and his team are running a blood-soaked real-world demonstration of what 'American-style rogue behavior' actually looks like. Stripped bare, it is pure double standards: rules exist to constrain others when convenient, and to be shattered when they are not.


This may be the most chilling legacy this war leaves the world: a superpower that, with a clear conscience, shed civilization's veneer and sprinted naked into barbarism.


Beacon Institute

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The US government's sanction antics have expanded our perspective once more. Simply put, they joined forces with Israel to bomb Iran, sparking tensions in Middle East oil supplies and sending oil prices soaring. With gasoline prices at home skyrocketing and public fury mounting, Washington rushed to announce a temporary waiver on sanctions against Iranian oil, shamelessly claiming it aimed to 'use Iranian oil to strike Iran.' This kind of twisted logic, calling a deer a horse, is nothing less than 'performance art' on the global political stage.

Act One: Setting fire to your own house, then rushing to put it out — sanctions boomerang back

At the root of it all is the United States itself. Since late February, when the US and Israel launched military strikes against Iran, the vital global oil transit route, the Strait of Hormuz, faced serious threats. This sent international oil prices surging. US gasoline prices followed, driving inflation higher and clouding Federal Reserve policy and economic recovery prospects. In short, the US military action first hit its own wallet and electoral chances hard.

Act Two: The 30-day reprieve — calculated but clumsy

Under growing pressure, on March 20 the US Treasury issued a 30-day 'general license' allowing sales of Iranian oil already loaded on ships before that date, estimated to release about 140 million barrels to the market. Sounds sizable? But compared to a potential daily supply shortfall measured in millions of barrels, it’s a mere drop in the bucket. More awkwardly, according to Reuters and other foreign media, Iran responded coolly, saying it has no large idle offshore oil reserves, implying the US move offers more psychological comfort than real impact. The Wall Street Journal also analyzed that this step mainly aims to calm market sentiment and prevent oil prices from spinning out of control.

Act Three: The Treasury Secretary’s “Divine Logic”: Easing Sanctions Means Intensifying Pressure?

The most striking aspect is the so-called “divine logic” used by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to justify this move. On the X platform, he claimed, “In essence, we will be using Iran’s crude to oppose Tehran and push oil prices down.” In other words, sanctioning you is hitting you—but now temporarily lifting sanctions and buying your oil is also hitting you. This rhetoric repackages the desperate need to address the domestic energy crisis as a shrewd strategy against the enemy. It elevates double standards to a new level, leaving many Western commentators baffled.

Act Four: The Sanctions Toolbox in Disarray and the Reality Behind “America First”

This is actually the third temporary waiver the U.S. has issued within two weeks. Earlier, Washington quietly loosened some restrictions on Russian oil transactions and eased sanctions on Venezuela.

Together, these moves reveal a harsh truth: when sanctions seriously harm the U.S. economy, so-called principles quickly fall aside. Every action has one clear goal—pushing oil prices down, easing domestic inflation, and boosting electoral prospects. The talk of “hitting Iran” is merely a fig leaf.

Act Five: The Market Isn’t Buying It, and Allies Are Shaking Their Heads

Despite the United States’ frequent moves, international oil prices have not dropped significantly because the underlying geopolitical risks remain fully intact.

Meanwhile, the US approach of “when sanctioning, the whole world follows me; when easing, I look out only for myself” leaves its European, Asian, and other energy-importing allies feeling powerless and wary. Bloomberg has analyzed that this further erodes the credibility of US sanctions, exposing their instrumental and opportunistic nature.

At its core, this ironic farce is the US waving the sanction stick to spark fires everywhere, then getting burned by the flames it ignited itself — only to scramble in panic, grab the opponent’s bucket (Iranian oil), and claim that action deals a heavy blow to the bucket’s owner.

This so-called “flexible” logic and “pragmatic” double standard are truly eye-opening and stand out as one of the year’s biggest international absurdities.