AFP•January 5, 2020
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump doubled down Sunday on a threat to attack Iranian cultural sites despite accusations that any such strike would amount to a war crime.
After his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, had insisted that any military action would conform to international law, Trump said he would regard cultural sites as fair game if Iran resorted to deadly force against US targets.
"They’re allowed to kill our people, they're allowed to torture and maim our people, they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people and we're not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way," Trump told reporters.
"If they do anything there will be major retaliation."
His comments on his return from a break in Florida followed a welter of criticism over a Tweet on Saturday night in which he said sites which were "important to... Iranian culture" were on a list of 52 potential US targets.
Tehran's foreign minister had reacted to those initial comments by drawing parallels with the Islamic State group's destruction of the Middle East's cultural heritage.
And as Twitter was flooded with photos of revered Iranian landmarks in ancient cities such as Isfahan under the hashtag #IranianCulturalSites, leading US Democrats said the president would be in breach of international protocols if he made good on his threat.
"You are threatening to commit war crimes," Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the top Democrats hoping to challenge Trump in November's election, wrote on Twitter.
"We are not at war with Iran. The American people do not want a war with Iran."
"Targeting civilians and cultural sites is what terrorists do. It's a war crime," added fellow Senator Chris Murphy.
In a flurry of interviews on the Sunday talkshows, Secretary of State Pompeo said the US would not hesitate to hit back hard against Iran's "kleptocratic regime" if it came under attack, but pledged that any action would be consistent with the rule of law.
Both sides have traded threats since a US drone strike in Iraq on Friday killed Qasem Soleimani -- one of the most important figures in the Iranian government.
"We'll behave lawfully. We'll behave inside the system. We always have and we always will," Pompeo told the ABC network.
"The American people should know that every target that we strike will be a lawful target, and it will be a target designed with a singular mission, of protecting and defending America."
His comments came after his opposite number in Tehran Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that "targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME".
"A reminder to those hallucinating about emulating ISIS war crimes by targeting our cultural heritage: Through MILLENNIA of history, barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries," said Foreign Minister Zarif.
"Where are they now? We're still here, & standing tall."
- Threat 'Un-American' -
Nicholas Burns, who served as US ambassador to NATO under president George W. Bush, said the Trump administration would be guilty of hypocrisy given it was part of international efforts to deter IS from destroying countless pre-Islamic artefacts, including in the Syrian UNESCO-listed site of Palmyra.
"Donald Trump's threat to destroy Iranian cultural sites would be a war crime under UN Security Council resolution 2347 – supported by the Trump Administration itself in 2017 to warn ISIS+Al Qaeda of similar actions.
"His threat is immoral and Un-American," said Burns, now a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Others drew comparisons with the Taliban's 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan
Pompeo refused to give details on the 52 potential targets which Trump said had been drawn up to represent each and every hostage held in the standoff at the US embassy in Tehran four decades ago.
But one former official expressed skepticism that military planners would agree to target cultural sites.
"I find it hard to believe the Pentagon would provide Trump targeting options that include Iranian cultural sites," said Colin Kahl who was National Security Adviser to former vice president Joe Biden.
"Trump may not care about the laws of war, but DoD (Department of Defense) planners and lawyers do... and targeting cultural sites is war crime."
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Trump warns cultural sites could be targeted if Iran retaliates for Soleimani strike
ABC News•January 5, 2020
Trump warns cultural sites could be targeted if Iran retaliates for Soleimani strike originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday night that if Iran retaliates for the U.S. airstrike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad, the U.S. is prepared to "hit very fast and very hard" at 52 sites inside Iran, including some important to "the Iranian Culture."
Targeting cultural sites could be considered a war crime under international agreements to which the U.S. belongs, according to both Trump's political foes and former national security officials.
The number 52 used by Trump in his tweets also matched the number of Americans seized in the November 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They were held hostage for 444 days.
Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared on ABC's "This Week" Sunday and said, "The American people should know that every target that we strike will be a lawful target, and it will be a target designed with a singular mission, of protecting and defending America."
MORE: World is safer because of Iranian commander's death: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
In the days since Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed by U.S. drones, Iranian leaders have vowed revenge.
Anticipating possible Iranian retaliation in the region, the Pentagon dispatched 3,500 soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait and augmented security at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
PHOTO: In this photo taken on Jan. 3, 2020, President Donald Trump makes a statement on Iran at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida. On Jan. 4 he warned that the U.S. is targeting 52 sites in Iran. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)MoreDestroying cultural sites could be considered a war crime under the 1954 Hague Convention for the preservation of cultural sites and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2347, which was passed unanimously in March 2017 in response to the Islamic State's destruction of historic sites in Iraq and Syria.
That resolution "deplores and condemns the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, inter alia destruction of religious sites and artifacts, as well as the looting and smuggling of cultural property from archaeological sites, museums, libraries, archives, and other sites, in the context of armed conflicts" and states that such acts could constitute war crimes.
MORE: US cities ramp up security in wake of killing of Iran's top general
"These are not legitimate military targets, and saying they are potentially opens up our cultural sites to be targets of Iran," said Mick Mulroy, an ABC News contributor and formerly the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East Policy. "The statement that we are targeting culturally significant targets in Iran undermines the message to the Iranian people that we are not against them."
Trump's tweets drew criticism on social media from other former national security officials and political critics.
"The more the walls close in on this guy, the more irrational he becomes," Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted in response to Trump.
"For what it's worth, I find it hard to believe the Pentagon would provide Trump targeting options that include Iranian cultural sites," tweeted Colin Kahl, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration. "Trump may not care about the laws of war, but DoD planners and lawyers do ... and targeting cultural sites is war crime."
PHOTO: Protesters demonstrate over the U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 4, 2020. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
When reached by ABC News for comment late Saturday, a Pentagon spokesperson referred questions about Trump’s tweets to the White House.
Typically, U.S. military planners consider a "proportional" response to a provocative military act, as happened in June when Trump initially approved airstrikes on Iranian air defense systems that shot down an American drone.
Trump called off the airstrikes shortly before they were set to take place when he learned that as many as 150 Iranian casualties were possible.
The president later tweeted that the death of that number of Iranians would not be "proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone."
ABC News' Shannon Crawford and Adia Robinson contributed to this report.
When reached by ABC News for comment late Saturday, a Pentagon spokesperson referred questions about Trump’s tweets to the White House.
Typically, U.S. military planners consider a "proportional" response to a provocative military act, as happened in June when Trump initially approved airstrikes on Iranian air defense systems that shot down an American drone.
Trump called off the airstrikes shortly before they were set to take place when he learned that as many as 150 Iranian casualties were possible.
The president later tweeted that the death of that number of Iranians would not be "proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone."
ABC News' Shannon Crawford and Adia Robinson contributed to this report.
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