The United Nations continues to imagine itself as the world’s great moral authority, while repeatedly proving why it does not deserve America’s backing. 

The White House responded Thursday after a U.N. fact-finding mission, operating under the 47-member Human Rights Council, found “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States committed war crimes in Iran during Operation Epic Fury. The Human Rights Council, naturally, includes such unimpeachable defenders of human dignity including China, Cuba, and Russia.

"Following the United States and Israeli attacks on 28 February, the Mission found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects," the UN wrote in its report. 

"These included Tomahawk missile strikes on the clearly identifiable Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab - which killed over 150 people, including approximately 120 girls and boys - and another airstrike where Precision Strike Missiles dispersed clouds of tungsten pellets over a clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area in Lamerd, killing 22 civilian men and women."

While less is known publicly about the second strike, the first appears to have been an obvious and tragic error. The primary school was located directly next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile base, and the U.S. military reportedly relied on an outdated map in planning the strike. That may constitute a grave operational failure, but it is an accident, not evidence that the United States willfully targeted schoolchildren.

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In its response, the White House blasted the Human Rights Council for failing to meaningfully advance its stated mission over several decades. It added that the only party committing war crimes in the conflict has been the Iranian regime, while reaffirming President Trump’s commitment to ensuring Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.

“The UN Human Rights Council has accomplished nothing for human rights while spouting unserious nonsense for decades,” White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said.

“The only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes is the Iranian regime, which has murdered thousands of its own people, killed Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz, and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region.”

President Trump “is courageously ensuring that such an evil country never possesses a nuclear weapon, which will make the entire world safer and more stable," Kelly added.

For all its faults, the U.N. did manage to get roughly half of its report right. It acknowledged Iran’s extensive human-rights abuses, though it stopped short of accusing Tehran of war crimes, despite its attacks on commercial vessels and apparent targeting of civilians. Evidently, the council’s moral clarity has limits. 

“Iran is responsible for gross human rights violations, including of the rights to life, freedom from torture and ill-treatment, personal security and liberty, fair trial, effective remedy, of peaceful assembly, to freedom of expression and association, and to equality and non-discrimination, privacy, and health,” the report read.

This comes as the U.N. General Assembly’s high-level week begins today in New York City, bringing world leaders together through Sept. 28. The theme is “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All,” a remarkably candid choice for an institution currently demonstrating why the trust needs restoring in the first place.