September 25, 2026, (TORONTO): The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) re-publishes new commentary in Scholar’s Corner by Prof. Mathias Risse, Director of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at the John F. Kennedy School of Harvard University, titled “Do I Drive Them into Hell with No Chance of Survival”: Trump’s Second Threat of Civilizational Annihilation, This Time as Policy.” The Institute is republishing this piece for the purpose of raising awareness to its readers on the implications of public and formal declaration made by the President of the United States.
In this blog post, Risse examines President Donald Trump’s September 22, 2026, remarks at the United Nations General Assembly concerning Iran. Risse states: “Trump did not just threaten to “annihilate” Iran. He threatened to leave the country with “no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations.” Prof. Risse added:
“Legal scholar Raphael Lemkin, in coining the word genocide, was clear that the crime is not reducible to mass killing in a single moment. It includes deliberate destruction of the capacity of a group to continue as that group — its ability to have a future at all. The language in the Genocide Convention about intent “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” was drafted distinctly with this broader temporal horizon in mind: not just what happens to the living, but what happens to the possibility of there being more of them. “No hope of future generations” is, whether or not Trump’s speechwriters knew it, close to a textbook articulation of this broader genocidal horizon — a threat not just to end an ancient civilization’s present but to foreclose its entire future.”
This piece follows an op-ed published by the author in April 2026 about Trump’s post on social media regarding Iran, where he states: “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” In this latest blog piece, Risse mentions how these new statements during his UN Address this week, following the statements from April, now shows a pattern of genocidal language. He highlights how, unlike the social media post, Trump’s latest speech was written, reviewed and formally delivered to ambassadors and heads of state, and not just blurted out off-the cuff demonstrating a shift to an actual policy of destruction.
In the commentary, Risse acknowledges Iran’s record of atrocity, but clearly states: “A government’s crimes against its own people do not bestow upon a foreign head of state a moral or legal license to threaten that people’s collective extinction.”
Read the full commentary on Scholar’s Corner: https://zoryaninstitute.org/scholar-corner/do-i-drive-them-into-hell-with-no-chance-of-survival-trumps-second-threat-of-civilizational-annihilation-this-time-as-policy/
This piece was originally published by the Harvard-Kennedy School on September 24, 2026. The Zoryan Institute received permission from the author to re-publish on Scholar’s Corner. The views expressed in the commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Zoryan Institute
