Political theater ran high when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley to contain President Trump’s ability to launch a nuclear strike in his final days, but a military legal expert and the nuclear commander said the military is under no obligation to follow an illegal, immoral, or unethical order.
“[There is] some fuzzy ground,” Steve Bucci, a Heritage Foundation military law expert and former adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, told the Washington Examiner when asked about the possibility that Trump may launch a strike against Iran in his final days.
“We’re not martinets. The American military doesn’t just salute blindly and execute,” he said. “You never have to obey an illegal order or one that you feel is morally or ethically incorrect.”
U.S. Strategic Command chief Adm. Charles Richard said on Jan. 5 he agrees with the American system that allows civilian control of the military when asked if he would follow a Trump order to strike Iran in his final days.
“I get asked this question a lot,” he said on a Zoom media call hosted by the Defense Writer’s Group.
“Bottom line, look, I will follow any legal order that I am given. I will not follow any illegal orders,” he said.
In the days surrounding the first anniversary of the U.S. strike against Iranian Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, rhetoric ran high from both the United States and Iran.
Senior Iranian officials implied Trump’s own life was at risk. Meanwhile, Trump warned Iran to “Think it over” in a Dec. 23 tweet that promised, “If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible.”
U.S. Central Command also flexed its muscle near Iran.
Multiple B-52 bombers flew missions over international waters near Iran, and Trump ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to turn around and remain in the Persian Gulf on the ready.
Last Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters prompted Pelosi to try to limit the president’s ability to launch a nuclear strike. The speaker told House Democrats Friday that she feared Trump might start a war in his final days.
“I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” Pelosi told Democrats in a memo Friday.
Bucci said it wouldn’t be that easy.
“The president all by himself doesn’t get to make the decisions on shooting nukes. There’s a whole advisory system there with him,” he explained.
Bucci said the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, U.S. Central Command, and the entire intelligence community would be involved in a threat assessment involving Iran. Then, military planners would evaluate targets and proportional options would be recommended to the president.
U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request by the Washington Examiner to comment on the threat presently posed by Iran and what U.S. forces remain in the area.
In recent weeks, Iran began to increase its uranium enrichment in violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal that Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018. The move arguably puts Iran on a faster breakout path to a nuclear weapon.
Nonetheless, Bucci said Trump has given no indication he wants to strike Iran as a way of reversing the activity.
“People who are speculating about that, that’s a lot of political theater,” he said. “With due respect to the speaker of the House, she’s the one jumping the shark here.”
The Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military’s legal system, protects service members who disobey illegal orders but also prosecutes those who disobey a legal order.
“We do have this requirement to take a moral stand when something is morally incorrect,” the former Army Special Forces operator said.
While quiet in recent days, Iran had escalated proxy attacks on U.S. interests in recent months.
“Iran has been surprisingly quiet up until recently in Iraq. Now, it’s starting to ratchet up the attacks again,” Heritage Foundation Mid-East security expert Jim Phillips recently told the Washington Examiner.
If an order is legal, Bucci said the service member must resign or face court-martial if he or she refuses to obey it.
“It gets less clear when you’re talking about a country that is an avowed adversary of us. Iran is an adversary,” he said. “They have said, ‘We’re going to destroy you.’”
