In a post on his X account late on Friday, he wrote, “The narrative advanced by the U.S. Secretary of War on the anniversary of 9/11 is riddled with fundamental contradictions: you cannot wage aggression, carry out cowardly assassinations, and inflict civilian casualties while simultaneously claiming exclusive authority to define terrorism and determine whose violence is legitimate.”
The perpetrators of 9/11 were not Iranians; they were the very same people whom the U.S. itself had armed, organized, or otherwise cultivated in the preceding decades. Yet the so-called “war on terror” that followed brought Afghanistan and Iraq years of war, occupation, civilian deaths, and devastation on a massive scale, he added.
Against this backdrop, invoking the anniversary of 9/11 to justify a reckless and unlawful war against Iran is utterly absurd, he said, adding, “ A criminal war that has involved the assassination of officials of a sovereign state and the targeting of civilians, including women and children, cannot be made morally coherent simply by wrapping it in the language of counterterrorism.”
He also criticized the US-led “war on terror,” saying the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had brought years of war, occupation, civilian deaths, and widespread devastation.
“Against this backdrop, invoking the anniversary of 9/11 to justify a reckless and unlawful war against Iran is utterly absurd,” Baghaei said.
He further rejected attempts to justify the US war against Iran through counterterrorism rhetoric, stressing that the war involved the assassination of officials of a sovereign state and attacks on civilians, including women and children.
“A criminal war that has involved the assassination of officials of a sovereign state and the targeting of civilians, including women and children, cannot be made morally coherent simply by wrapping it in the language of counterterrorism,” he said.
The American invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people in the United States. Washington presented the foolhardy military adventure as the opening battle in a so-called “war on terror.”
Yet after 20 years of brutal military occupation, trillions of dollars spent, and enormous human suffering resulting from the US-led coalition’s horrendous war crimes, the occupiers have not achieved a political settlement or eliminated the forces they had vowed to defeat.
MNA