Hegseth's "no quarter" Iran talk alarms legal experts

Lauren Floyd

Man at podium points forward — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference at U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida, on March 5, 2026, where regional defense and security leaders met to coordinate efforts against drug cartels. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's pledge of "no quarter, no mercy for our enemies" violates a bright‑line ban in the laws of war, legal experts say.

Why it matters: International humanitarian law explicitly forbids declaring that "no quarter will be given" or threatening to fight on that basis, treating it as a war crime on par with targeting fighters who are wounded or attempting to surrender.

Legal experts have taken to social media to warn that any order resembling "no quarter" is patently illegal.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

What they're saying: New York University law professor Ryan Goodman tells Axios that the defense secretary is "putting the American military on a track to lawlessness in which we will lose more and more allies."

"The best thing Secretary Hegseth can do for the country and for the US military is to say he misspoke and to retract the statement," said Goodman, who is also co-editor-in-chief of the national security journal Just Security.

Context: The U.S. military has banned such orders since the Civil War's Lieber Code, which governed how armies should behave during war.

"It's one of the reasons that the United States ensured Germany's senior military officials were prosecuted for the crime after World War II," Goodman said.
The Hague and Geneva conventions and U.S. protocols later built on the Lieber Code's principles.
"The Pentagon's law of war manual states unequivocally that such statements are war crimes," Goodman said.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said in an X post Friday, "'No quarter' isn't some wanna be tough guy line - it means something."

"An order to give no quarter would mean to take no prisoners and kill them instead. That would violate the law of armed conflict. It would be an illegal order. It would also put American service members at greater risk."

Zoom out: The defense secretary's speech comes amid increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the Trump administration about enemies and battlefield conduct.

President Trump has used Truth Social videos to promise strikes on Iran and to tell Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fighters if they don't lay down their arms, they face "certain death," while urging others to "reclaim your country."
Some lawmakers publicly reminded service members last year that they must refuse manifestly unlawful orders.
Trump called the Democrats' remarks "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."

Go deeper: Trump claims international coalition will send war ships to reopen the strait of Hormuz

Add Axios on Google

Hegseth's "no quarter" Iran talk alarms legal experts

What to read next