Why Washington Fears the ICC's Visit to Minab
As Hague judges examine the school strike that killed more than 160 children, the US moves to sanction the court — a reaction that fits a long pattern of evading accountability
The arrival of an International Criminal Court (ICC) delegation in Iran to investigate the US-Israeli strike on a school in Minab has provoked a sharp reaction from Washington — one that says a great deal about what the United States fears may follow.
According to reports, the US State Department and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have opened a campaign to press the ICC over its inquiry into the February 28 attack. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and subsequently in official statements, Rubio suggested the administration could work to “dismantle” the court through measures including sanctioning its judges and staff, revoking their visas, applying diplomatic pressure on states that cooperate with it, and urging American allies to scale back their own engagement. Reuters reported that the threats form part of a broader effort to force the court to abandon its investigation.
The concern in Washington, the analysis suggests, is straightforward: cooperation between the court and Iran could produce documents and evidence later used to investigate or prosecute Israeli — and even American — officials for war crimes.
The crime at Minab
The strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, in the southern province of Hormozgan, ranks among the deadliest American attacks of the war on Iran. It came on the morning of February 28, the very first day of the aggression, when multiple missiles slammed into the elementary school, destroying parts of the building and killing more than 160 children.
In the early days, US officials declined to accept responsibility, with President Donald Trump himself claiming he had no evidence the missiles were American. Days later, however, the Associated Press confirmed that the US military had targeted the school. The Pentagon has yet to release a final official investigation and has remained silent on the details.
With its staggering toll of children, the Minab attack has become one of the most prominent cases of civilian casualties in the war, continuing to draw scrutiny across the media, human rights organisations, and international legal circles. The ICC judges’ visit was aimed specifically at examining its legal dimensions.
A long record
The strike on Minab, however, does not stand alone. It falls within a long history of American conduct in the region’s wars — a record that helps explain both the gravity of the present case and Washington’s determination to keep it out of an international courtroom.
The Abu Ghraib scandal of 2003–2004 remains among the most infamous abuses of the Iraq War, after images emerged of Iraqi detainees being tortured and humiliated by US military personnel. Army investigations confirmed the violations, and several soldiers were imprisoned, but critics have long noted that senior officials were never held to account.
In November 2005, following the death of a US Marine in a roadside bombing, Marines entered the Iraqi town of Haditha and killed 25 civilians, mostly women and children. Despite charges against several service members, most were later dropped, and only a single, limited conviction resulted.
In September 2007, personnel of the private security firm Blackwater, operating under US government contract, opened fire on passing cars in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 civilians. Several were convicted in US courts, but some were later pardoned by Trump — a move widely condemned by rights groups.
On 3 October 2015, a US AC-130 gunship struck a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 patients and staff. The military attributed the attack to a cascade of human errors and acknowledged that rules of engagement had been violated, while insisting the hospital had not been deliberately targeted; rights groups demanded an independent war-crimes investigation.
In 2010, US soldiers who came to be known as the “Kill Team” in the Maiwand district of Kandahar were accused of deliberately murdering Afghan civilians and planting weapons on the bodies to stage them as insurgents, with some posing for photographs alongside the dead. The case produced several convictions and stands as one of the most shocking scandals of the Afghanistan war.
And since 2002 — particularly after 2009 — American forces have carried out hundreds of drone strikes across Yemen. Framed by officials as counterterrorism, many were documented by human rights organisations as killing civilians, including women and children. The 2013 strike on a wedding convoy in Al Bayda province, among other incidents, drew sharp condemnation and calls for independent scrutiny of their compliance with international humanitarian law.
Set against that history, Washington’s campaign against the ICC appears less as a defence of principle than as the latest instance of a recurring pattern: when accountability approaches, the response is not to answer the charge, but to attack the body raising it.
Reference: ABNA24