Rights Group Leads Push for UN to Declare US-Israeli Assault on Iran ‘War of Aggression’

This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Brett Wilkins

A leading human rights group on Monday urged the United Nations General Assembly to declare the unprovoked US-Israeli assault on Iran—which has already killed more than 500 people in just three days, including many children—a “war of aggression.”

In a letter sent to the permanent missions of all UN member states in New York City, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) “called on governments to formally request an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly to declare the assault a war of aggression in violation of the UN Charter and to demand the immediate cessation of all hostilities.”

“The [UN] Security Council is unable to make that determination because the United States, as a permanent member and a party to the conflict, will veto any resolution,” DAWN explained. “The General Assembly should act in its place.”

See Also: Trump’s Unprovoked War on Iran Triggers 10% Spike in Global Oil Prices

DAWN’s call came as the death toll from three days of US-Israeli bombardment of cities, towns, and sites throughout Iran rose to at least 555, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Multiple massacres—including a bombing of a girls’ school in Minab that officials said killed at least 180 people, many of them students—have been reported.

“The United States has initiated a war of aggression, which UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 defines as ‘a crime against international peace’ and which the Nuremberg Tribunal—established by the United States itself—called ‘the supreme international crime,’” the group noted.

DAWN continued:

“No legal framework, international or domestic, can justify this US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran,” DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. “This war is patently illegal, and it must be stopped.”

DAWN’s call came on the same day that US First Lady Melania Trump chaired a UN Security Council meeting about the role of education in “advancing tolerance and world peace.”

See Also: Neither Preemptive Nor Legal, US‑Israeli Strikes on Iran Have Blown up International Law

“We’ve become the laughingstock of the entire world,” lamented the social media group Occupy Democrats. “This is an unprecedented appearance by an American first dady and yet another sign that [President] Donald Trump prizes loyalty and proximity to himself over competence.”

“In fact, this is the first time that the spouse of ANY world leader has been allowed to take the president’s seat on the Security Council,” Occupy Democrats added. “It sends a clear signal to the world that the United States is now little more than a nepotistic, tin-pot dictatorship.”

DAWN also sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to pass a pair of war powers resolutions that would bar US forces from waging an unconstitutional war on Iran. H.Con.Res.38 and S.J.Res.59—introduced last year respectively by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)—would direct Trump to withdraw US forces from unconstitutional attacks on Iran.

“The question before Congress is not whether to authorize this war retroactively,” the letter states. “Given that... this war has been illegal under US domestic law from the moment it began... the question before you is whether to end it now, and Congress has the power to do so.”

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