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President Donald Trump doubled down Sunday on his belief that the United States military has the right to target Iranian cultural sites, dismissing concerns from the public and even from his own administration that he would be committing a war crime by doing so. The threat comes as the president continues escalating tensions with Iran after authorizing a U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general at an airport Friday in Baghdad. The assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani has led to fury from Iran and unhinged threats of war from Trump. “They’re allowed to kill our people,” Trump told White House reporters Sunday on Air Force One. “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.” The remarks echo Trump’s comments a day earlier, when he tweeted that he will attack 52 Iranian sites if the country’s government retaliates against the U.S. over Soleimani’s death. The president did not say which places the U.S. might strike, but alleged that some of those sites are cultural sites. The number of sites is the same as the number of Americans held hostage during the Iranian Revolution takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Download Many responded to his tweet by reminding him that attacking cultural sites and places of worship are war crimes under international law. The U.S. is a party to the 1954 Hague Convention, a treaty on international law that protect cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Signatories adopted the treaty because “damage to cultural property belonging to any people ever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind.” Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, hit back at Trump by comparing his threats to that of terrorists who have also destroyed cultural sites. “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 out libraries,” Zarif tweeted Sunday morning in response to Trump’s initial comments. “Where are they now? We’re still here, & standing tall.” The U.S. was one of the biggest critics of the so-called Islamic State’s destruction of historical sites in Mosul, Iraq, and Palmyra, Syria, and of the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. Two senior U.S. officials on Sunday told CNN that there was widespread opposition within the Trump administration to targeting cultural sites in Iran if the U.S. retaliates. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told several Sunday shows that the U.S. will launch retaliatory strikes against Iran if attacke
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