ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Dispatches) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday stood by his threat to go after Iranian cultural sites, warning of a "major retaliation” if Iran strikes back for the assassination of one of its top military commanders.
Asked about potential retaliation by Iran, Trump said: "If it happens, it happens. If they do anything, there will be major retaliation.”
Trump has employed gangster-like rhetoric in public, tweeting that the United States had targeted 52 Iranian sites, some "at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” if Iran struck any American or American assets in retaliation.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied on Sunday that Trump said he would target Iranian cultural sites, but the president contradicted him when asked about the issue on Sunday night.
Targeting cultural sites with military action is considered a war crime under international law, including a UN Security Council resolution supported by the Trump administration in 2017 and the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property.
Iran's Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif reminded Trump that although "barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries” throughout history, Iranians still stand tall.
Zarif also drew an analogy between Trump's threat and Daesh razing of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria, saying the U.S. president is "hallucinating about emulating ISIS war crimes by targeting our cultural heritage.”
"Such a threat is reminiscent of the Mongols’ invasion or the actions of terrorist and criminal groups in the destruction of cultural and historical sites, which according to international law, amount to war crime,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not bow to any threat or intimidation and stands firmly ready to respond to any threat or act against its security and territorial integrity,” he added.
Iran's Minister of Information and Communication Technology Muhammad Javad Azari Jahromi called Trump "a terrorist in a suit.” He said Trump will learn "very soon that NOBODY can defeat ‘the Great Iranian Nation & Culture’."
A former chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said Iran would hit the Zionist city of Haifa and Israeli military centers if Trump went ahead with his threat.
"In response to Trump, who has said that Washington will attack Iran if it takes revenge, be sure that in such a case we will completely level Haifa and key Israeli targets," Mohsen Rezaei said.
Iran’s Army chief dismissed the U.S. president’s threat, saying the Americans lack the "courage" to make good on such a spurious promise.
"They make such comments in order to save face after their ugly and unjustified act" of assassinating Iran's Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, General Abdolrahim Mousavi said.
"In a likely conflict which I doubt they have the courage to initiate, it would be determined to which side these 5 and 2 digits belong," he added.  
In his tweet on Saturday, Trump said the targets represented 52 Americans who were held in Iran for acts of espionage following the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by revolutionary students.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will introduce and vote on a war powers resolution this week to limit Trump’s military actions regarding Iran.
"This resolution is similar to the resolution introduced by Senator Tim Kaine in the Senate,” Pelosi said in a statement late on Sunday.
"It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days.”
The resolution is likely to win approval in the Democratic-led House, but prospects for passage are less certain in the Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans.
UNESCO said on Monday that the United States has signed treaties committing it not to harm cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict.