Donald Trump and his national security team in the Situation Room of the White House. Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr.

A few days into the US-Israeli attack on Iran, when US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said American jets were “bringing death and destruction from the sky, all day long,” it was hard to fathom who he hoped to influence or impress. Did he expect the proud yet wounded people of Iran to suddenly capitulate under the weight of US-Israeli bombs? Unlikely. Did he hope that Americans, nearly a majority of whom oppose air strikes on Tehran, would be persuaded by his rhetoric? Hardly. Did Hegseth think that his European and Canadian allies would applaud an illegal war? Doubtful. Iran had not attacked the United States or Israel at the time of the air strikes, and even the most craven politicians in the West cringed at Hegseth’s indecorous glee.

“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” he went on to say. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hegseth’s address came on the heels of one of the single worst war crimes committed by the US military since the Vietnam War. On the first day of Operation Epic Fury, the US military bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in southern Iran. The precision-guided missiles, which were reportedly targeted at a nearby military base, slaughtered 175 people, mostly children between the ages of seven and 12. The girls were shredded, their blood was strewn on books and desks, and classrooms collapsed into dust.

Witnesses say the school was subjected to what’s called a “double tap” strike, which is the ruthless practice of following a bombardment with a second strike only a few minutes later, typically in an attempt to maximize casualties. In this case, the second missile killed sheltering survivors, first responders, and a parent of a slain child, according to a Red Crescent medic who spoke to the news site Middle East Eye.

By day seven of the military campaign, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani, said the attacks had killed at least 1,332 Iranians and injured thousands more. Witnesses have described apocalyptic scenes in........

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