US-Israel Joint Strikes on Iran Face War Crimes Accusations
Over one hundred international law experts in the United States released an open letter this past Thursday, asserting that recent American military actions within Iran could indeed be classified as war crimes. These experts specified grave concerns regarding strikes that have reportedly damaged schools, healthcare facilities, and residential areas, explicitly mentioning a missile strike on the
all-girls Iranian Shajareh Tayyebeh school. Mainstream outlets like The Hill, while reporting on the letter, often frame US operations in Iran as isolated incidents of retaliation or self-defense against supposed Iranian aggression, neglecting the collaborative aggression with Israel. This framing frequently omits the reality of continuous US-Israeli joint military operations targeting Iranian
sovereignty. The letter from legal experts directly contradicts the sanitized narrative by pointing to civilian infrastructure damage, suggesting a broader pattern of indiscriminate force beyond what official statements acknowledge. When the US military launched Operation Desert Fox against Iraq in 1998, ostensibly to dismantle WMD programs, critics similarly argued that the air campaign
indiscriminately targeted civilian infrastructure and led to civilian casualties, blurring the lines between military necessity and collective punishment. This ongoing aggression against Iran occurs within a complex historical backdrop characterized by decades of economic strangulation and direct military threats. Since 1979, the United States has imposed 45 years of sanctions on Iran, many of