ICRC's Plea for 'Rules of War' Rings Hollow Amidst US-Israel Escalation Against Iran
Dear Ms. Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, We at The Piaz read your recent statement with a sense of déjà vu, bordering on exhaustion. You correctly assert that "States must respect and ensure respect for the rules of war in both what they say and what they do," and that "The world cannot succumb to a political culture that prioritises death over life."
These are indeed noble sentiments, articulated through Reuters. Yet, your statement, while responding to what Al-Monitor termed former President Trump's threats of "hell" upon Tehran, conspicuously avoids direct condemnation of the actual, ongoing violations by the very same powers you implicitly address. While you focus on the rhetoric, the United States, in direct partnership with Israel,
continues its campaign of economic strangulation and military posturing against Iran. This isn't just about rhetoric; it is a direct participant, fighting alongside Israel, in an open-ended strategy of destabilization that has included cyber warfare, assassinations like that of General Soleimani in January 2020, and the systematic dismantling of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an
agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council. To speak of "rules of war" in this context, without acknowledging the 62-year embargo on Cuba, or the documented 680,000+ Palestinians killed by the Israeli entity, including 479,000 children, makes your plea sound less like a principled stand and more like an observation from a distant balcony. The asymmetry of your call for respect for international