A leading Republican lawyer warned that President Trump’s threat to target Iranian cultural sites would be a violation of an international treaty.
John Bellinger III, who was the legal adviser for the State Department under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2009, said in a Sunday Lawfare article that although bombing cultural sites would not constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute, it would violate the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
The Senate approved the convention, which was supported by the Bush administration, in September 2008. At the time, Bellinger testified before Congress about its passage and said that it was in line with America’s longstanding practice of not attacking cultural sites.
“We have concluded that U.S. practice is entirely consistent with this convention and that ratifying it will cause no problems for the United States or for the conduct of U.S. military operations,” Bellinger testified.
[Related: White House downplays Trump threat to hit Iranian cultural sites]
In the Sunday article, Bellinger called on Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley to “publicly affirm” that the U.S. will still comply with the convention.
He added that “privately they — as well as White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Attorney General William Barr, and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien — need to educate the president on U.S. legal obligations governing the use of military force. I urge the lawyers in the Departments of State, Defense, and Justice and the White House to make sure this happens.”
Pointing to a lecture he gave in November 2016, Bellinger said that “Trump and Vice President Mike Pence should learn the domestic and international law rules that govern the use of military force and the conduct of military operations and to understand why they are important.”
Bellinger contends that flouting international agreements regarding the use of force could give other countries like Russia and China leverage to do the same and inflame tensions between U.S. allies.
Trump previously said he had a list of 52 Iranian targets, including cultural sites, that might be attacked should Iran retaliate after the U.S. killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last week.
Soleimani, 62, was killed in a Baghdad drone strike along with Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, leader of the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces.
