Sep 3, 2026 · 46 min · 8 segments
Host Ryan Goodman is joined by Tom Dannenbaum, Margaret Donovan, and Todd Huntley to discuss whether the United States has violated the law of armed conflict in its conduct of the Iran war. They…
Tom DannenbaumGuest
Ryan GoodmanHost
Margaret DonovanGuest
And today's podcast discussion, the topic for our conversation is an evaluation of whether or not U.S. military conduct in the Iran war has violated the law of armed conflict.
And just I want to start the conversation with three caveats, and then I will go around and folks will introduce themselves.
But the caveats are that we're only discussing the law of armed conflict for those in the legal domain.
We're not discussing use ad bellum or the laws that apply as to whether or not a state should go to war.
And it should go without saying, but compliance with the first category of a body of law, the law of hostilities does not excuse or remedy violations of
And a second caveat is that we don't, because of that, discuss here, unless it comes up somehow in a conversation, we're pretty much bracketing it, the United States and Israeli government's assertions that the resort to war was effective.
And then the last one is, I think I'll just stipulate for the conversation, we can get into it if we need to, but just as a working assumption that Iran and the Iranian government has violated the laws of war in many different ways and in very serious ways, amounting easily to war crimes, at least in my estimation.
But that might come into our conversation in some ways, but the focus is going to be on U.S. military operations.
So with that, we've assembled just a wonderful group of foremost scholars and experts in this space.
And I just figured I'd go around and if folks could just introduce themselves alphabetically, it goes Tom Danenbaum, Margaret Donovan, and then Todd Huntley.
So Tom, would you just like to say a few words about your background and then your current position where you're at?
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And today's podcast discussion, the topic for our conversation is an evaluation of whether or not U.S. military conduct in the Iran war has violated the law of armed conflict.
And just I want to start the conversation with three caveats, and then I will go around and folks will introduce themselves.
But the caveats are that we're only discussing the law of armed conflict for those in the legal domain.
We're not discussing use ad bellum or the laws that apply as to whether or not a state should go to war.
And it should go without saying, but compliance with the first category of a body of law, the law of hostilities does not excuse or remedy violations of
And a second caveat is that we don't, because of that, discuss here, unless it comes up somehow in a conversation, we're pretty much bracketing it, the United States and Israeli government's assertions that the resort to war was effective.
And then the last one is, I think I'll just stipulate for the conversation, we can get into it if we need to, but just as a working assumption that Iran and the Iranian government has violated the laws of war in many different ways and in very serious ways, amounting easily to war crimes, at least in my estimation.
But that might come into our conversation in some ways, but the focus is going to be on U.S. military operations.
So with that, we've assembled just a wonderful group of foremost scholars and experts in this space.
And I just figured I'd go around and if folks could just introduce themselves alphabetically, it goes Tom Danenbaum, Margaret Donovan, and then Todd Huntley.
So Tom, would you just like to say a few words about your background and then your current position where you're at?