Why Trump should be indicted

Crispin Hull, June 1, 2026

The details of the 2016 agreement that the Obama Administration and European allies made with Iran show why President Donald Trump should be indicted for the war crime of waging an aggressive war.

That agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the nuclear-armed US, UK, France, China, and Russia, and Germany and Iran, which Iran abided by for two years until Trump tore it up, made it impossible for Iran to make a nuclear bomb.

Last week, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent denied that the Obama-era agreement ever happened.

“This administration, President Trump, has done something that no other administration was able to do,” he said. “We have gotten the Iranians to talk about their nuclear program and perhaps commit to not having one. That has never happened before. It had been off the table.”

This is utterly untrue. Obama not only got Iranians to talk about their nuclear program but to agree to detailed restrictions on uranium and plutonium enrichment with verifiable inspections that would make construction of a bomb impossible.

In January 2016, under the headline, “The Historic Deal that Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon”, the White House stated: “On January 16, 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran has completed the necessary steps under the Iran deal that will ensure Iran’s nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful.”

This is the verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency – the independent international body that has been doing nuclear verification since 1957.

Trump and his Cabinet toadies are in complete denial that it ever happened.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “Only one president was willing to lay it out on the line and ensure after 47 years that Iran is not capable of having a nuclear weapon.”

Again, not true.

There are a couple of reasons for the denial. One, they work on the basis that anything Obama did must be bad or if good, deny it happened. And, secondly, that if in the past the US had the security of a nuclear-bomb-incapable Iran it would not be possible to argue that Trump’s 2026 attack on Iran was justified as self-defence.

There are only two legally valid reasons to go to war: self-defence and UN authorisation. Trump’s attack on Iran met neither of the criteria. It was the criminal waging of an aggressive war, and he is responsible for all the death and destruction that followed. The International Criminal Court should start an investigation into Trump.

This does not excuse the violence, aggression, and human-rights breaches by the Iranian regime. But they in turn do not excuse illegal Trump’s and the US conduct either.

Iranian scepticism of US bona fides is, however, justified, given US engineering of the 1953 coup against a democratic Iranian Government; the US arming and empowerment of the Shah of Iran’s 26-year brutal repression, torture and murder; the US’s unapologetic 1988 shooting down of Iran Flight 655 killing 290 innocent people; and the US’s reneging on the 2016 nuclear agreement after Iran had verifiably abided by it for two years.

Yes, international law is difficult or near impossible to enforce, but if both sides in any international conflict resort to right-is-might the consequence is always unnecessary death and destruction. More importantly, if a great number of nations adhere to international law, it isolates and pressures those countries and their leaders who do not. With economic and physical consequences.

At least, European and other democratic allies realised Trump’s Iran illegality and refused to take part. Once burned by US President George W Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, twice shy. At least Bush tried to get UN sanction for his invasion. Not Trump.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..And the lessons for Australia? Stick to the rule of law and keep appropriate distance from the US. And the lessons for Australian voters, who on current polls seem set to give One Nation more votes than any other party? Pay attention. Look at history.

Look at Hanson cosying up to Trump and their similarities – joining forces with billionaires; accepting gifts of aircraft in questionable circumstances; and more.

British voters surely wouldn’t vote to leave the EU and trash their economy? US voters surely would not vote for Trump – twice – likely handing over world economic and political leadership to China?

Australians surely would not vote to put One Nation’s Pauline Hanson in the Prime Minister’s Lodge with who knows what consequences.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.crispinhull.com.au/2026/06/01/why-trump-should-be-indicted/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=crispin-hull-column