DAVE DeCAMP, [email protected], @DecampDave
DeCamp is news editor of Antiwar.com and host of “Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp” — a daily summary of news developments.
He just wrote the piece “State Department Says U.S. Is in Conflict With Iran ‘At the Request’ of Israel” which states: “The State Department said in a statement last week that the U.S. is in conflict with Iran ‘at the request’ of Israel, an acknowledgment of Israel’s role in steering the U.S. into the war, which the U.S. has dubbed ‘Operation Epic Fury.’
“The statement was issued by the State Department’s legal adviser, Reed D. Rubinstein, who attempted to provide a legal justification for the war.
“’As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the UN Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense,’ Rubinstein said.
“The term ‘collective self-defense’ was likely used to echo Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states that nothing in the charter ‘shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,’ but the U.S. does not have a mutual defense treaty with Israel and is not bound by U.S. law to defend the country.
“The U.S. and Israel were also the first to attack Iran, undercutting the U.S. claim of ‘self-defense.’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said that the U.S. launched the war because Israel was planning to attack and that Iran’s retaliation could have involved attacks on U.S. bases.” DeCamp in his most recent news summary stresses that whatever role Israel had in no way absolves Trump and the U.S. government of culpability.
DeCamp also noted: “Rubinstein repeated the argument made by the White House that the U.S. has been in an ongoing conflict with Iran over the decades, which is based on claims that attacks by Iran-allied factions on U.S. troops in the Middle East were part of an Iranian war against the U.S. The argument that omits the U.S.’s history of backing forces against Iran, such as the U.S. supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.”