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Trump Threat to Destroy Iranian Cultural Sites Condemned Internationally

Steve Herman

   WHITE HOUSE - Threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to destroy Iranian
   cultural sites are generating widespread international condemnation and
   accusations it would be a war crime.

   It is also seen as a reversal of an American code of conduct dating
   back to the Civil War administration of Abraham Lincoln.

   "The history of the American military of protecting cultural sites when
   possible, goes back over 150 years. The military and the United States,
   more broadly, is rightly proud of that," according to Depaul University
   Law Professor Patty Gerstenblith, director of the school's Center for
   Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law.

   "Both at the U.S. national level and internationally, the thought of
   using an attack on cultural heritage as a form of retaliation and
   reprisal -- which is what this would be -- is really abhorrent,"
   Gerstenblith, a former chair of the President's Cultural Property
   Advisory Committee in the Obama administration, told VOA.

   Some of the criticism of Trump's threats is coming from among America's
   closest allies.

   "We've been very clear that cultural sites are protected under
   international law and we would expect that to be respected," said
   British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab.

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