A United Nations investigation found “reasonable grounds” that the United States had likely committed war crimes in its war against Iran, and the report is scheduled to be submitted to the international body on Monday — just one day before President Donald Trump is expected to address the UN and its “deeply skeptical audience” in New York, Reuters reported Friday.
The report is expected to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, and found that the United States had acted “recklessly” in its strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school on the first day of the conflict, an attack that killed more than 150 civilians, including around 120 children. Investigators came to a “similar conclusion” regarding a U.S. strike on an Iranian sports hall that damaged a nearby school and killed 22 civilians, Reuters reported.
In response to the probe’s findings, the White House attacked the UN Human Rights Council, accusing the body of having “accomplished nothing for human rights,” according to Reuters.
The timing of the report puts its submission to the UN on a collision course with Trump’s address to the international body, where Reuters noted the president will “face a deeply skeptical audience increasingly rattled by six months of war between US forces and an emboldened Iran.”
Aaron David Miller, who previously advised secretaries of state in both Republican and Democratic-led administrations, said that Trump had only himself to blame for what may be a sour reception at the UN gathering on Tuesday.
“We are seeing what happens when a president launches a war of choice without anticipating the unintended consequences,” Miller told Reuters.
Jonathan Panikoff, a Middle East expert and former deputy national intelligence officer, argued that Trump’s dilemma was only likely to get worse.
“The US clearly has (military) capacity challenges but even so the cost of inaction here is likely to intensify tensions among Gulf allies,” Panikoff told Reuters.
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