US Attack on Wedding in Sirik Port: War or Crime?

An attack on a wedding ceremony in Sirik Port, Iran, has drawn sharp criticism from Iranian media, which argue that such attacks on civilians constitute crimes rather than acts of war. The attack, along with previous strikes on civilian areas in Minab, Qeshm, and Lark, is seen as a result of America's successive military failures and its inability to open the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, civilians and all those not participating in hostilities must not be targeted under any circumstances and should be protected by governments and international organizations, including the United Nations Security Council. War has its own laws, and under international standards, bombing people and attacking defenseless cities is incompatible with the concept of war. Conflict on the battlefield is termed "war," but attacks on innocent people are considered "crimes." The international community, comprising various countries, international institutions, and even intermediary nations, is obliged to distinguish between war and crime and to prevent violations of international regulations by condemning such crimes.

The late Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, also emphasized this distinction. In an interview with the Arabic-language magazine Al-Alam, he stated, "War, like other general issues, has its own rules, and the two sides of the war, who are enemies of each other, have always considered themselves obliged to follow these rules, and this has been the case even in old wars. That is, when two armies fought each other, they considered themselves obligated to remove the other from the field and, if necessary, kill the opposing forces. However, everywhere and always, and in the eyes of most people, gouging out the eyes or cutting off the nose and ears of someone who was killed, or killing women and children, as well as killing doctors and, for example, latecomers, was a forbidden and reprehensible act. Therefore, the laws of war are not specific to our time, and even when the people of the world had not reached this level of current civilization, they had laws for fighting their enemies." (Al-Alam Magazine, 15/11/1996)

The article asserts that conflict in the field and on the front is war, but attacking innocent people is a crime and a violation of human rights. The Islamic Republic of Iran, as the martyred leader repeatedly said, must hold the West accountable.

The criminal actions of the United States against civilians and residential areas, in continuation of its crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, have seriously challenged the thinking of liberal democracy. The article argues that based on this rotten thinking, it is possible to attack a wedding ceremony, kill children and women, and destroy civilian areas in order to maintain power. The condemnation and exposure of these crimes by independent countries that adhere to legal and humanitarian standards will be a deterrent to preventing war crimes and genocide. This will not only accelerate the decline of the United States but will also be effective in shaping the future civilized world order.

In general, the dissemination of the discourse of "separating war from crime" has rational and humane foundations and is in line with international standards and regulations. The international community must condemn, through international institutions and judicial courts, attacks on civilian areas and defenseless people in Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, etc. The recent statement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Bishkek showed that with continuous diplomatic activity, favorable achievements can be made to defend the rights of the Iranian people and confront the crimes of the United States. In this direction, the responsible agencies in the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Human Rights Headquarters of the Judiciary, must be the vanguard and, in connection with the countries of the world and regional coalitions, prevent the continuation of such crimes with the necessary measures. According to Mehr News Agency (MNA), this analysis was published in response to the attack.