February 07 2020
President Trump backed off his threat to bomb Iranian culture sites after four days of being told it was illegal—but that didn’t stop Iran from continuing to tell the Iranian public that Trump was still threatening cultural sites.
When Trump first made the threat, the Iranian media gave it huge coverage and state propaganda made a major point of publicizing what Trump said. Social media erupted in fury, as the threat clearly angered the Iranian public—especially among those who oppose the Islamic Republic.
US officials had to tell Trump repeatedly that an international convention, of which the United States is a signatory, forbids targeting such sites. Trump clearly did not want to hear that and was hard to dissuade.
He first made the threat Saturday, January 4, then repeated it the next day, was silent the following day, and finally backtracked and said he wouldn’t order any such attacks on Tuesday, January 7, putting an end to the issue—except in Iran.
Trump originally tweeted that the US had “targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” adding that “if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets,… Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”
He reiterated his threat to reporters on Air Force One the next day.
But his own officials contradicted him. Defense Secretary Mark Esper emphasized the US would not break laws in its response to any Iran attack. “We will follow the laws of armed conflict,” Esper told CNN two days after the first Trump threat
When pressed if that meant not targeting Iranian cultural sites, Esper replied: “That’s the laws of armed conflict.”
The next day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “every action” the US takes “will be consistent with the international rule of law.”
Hours later, Trump expressed frustration over what he saw as a double standard in warfare, but backed off his threat to violate international law.
“They blow up our people and then we have to be very gentle with their cultural institutions,” Trump said. “They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to maim our people. They’re allowed to blow up everything that we have and there’s nothing that stops them. And we are, according to various laws, supposed to be very careful with their cultural heritage.”
Speaking off the cuff as he sat in the Oval Office with the visiting Greek prime minister, Trump said, “If that’s what the law is—I like to obey the law. But think of it, they kill our people, they blow up our people and then we have to be very gentle with their cultural institutions.”
Two days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif repeated Trump’s original threat without acknowledging that he had rescinded it. In a written message presented to the UN Security Council, Zarif said the “unhinged regime” in the United States “now even seeks to emulate the war crimes of Daesh [the Islamic State], menacing the cultural heritage of the millennia-old civilization of Iran.”
Weeks later, Iranian media were still trumpeting Trump’s threat as if it were still active.
