The Human Cost of the Iran War

 

Every day that this is allowed to continue, Iranian civilians are at risk of being killed or maimed in a senseless war on their country.

by Daniel Larison | Sep 3, 2026 | News | 0 Comments

The U.S. struck a wedding in Kuhestak, Iran in the latest round of strikes in the president’s criminal war:

Around 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the wedding was struck by a bomb that, according to a weapons expert and a visual analysis by The New York Times, had been released by American forces as they carried out intense attacks in southern Iran. At least five wedding guests were killed, including a 6-year-old boy, and at least 67 other people were wounded, according to Iran’s Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian aid group.

This is only the most recent attack that has killed Iranian civilians. The Iranian government has condemned this attack as a war crime. Whether the attack on the wedding was accidental or not, every strike that the U.S. conducts inside Iran is another act of aggression in an illegal war. Every day that this is allowed to continue, Iranian civilians are at risk of being killed or maimed in a senseless war on their country.

Since the U.S. and Israel started the war at the end of February, at least 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed, and the total is probably much higher. Compared to the horrors of the war in Gaza, that may seem low, but these are all lives of innocent people snuffed out in a war that the president started on a whim. If not for the criminal actions of the U.S. and Israeli governments, all these people would be alive today.

When we count the human cost of our government’s wars, we tend to give short shrift to the lives of the people in the country that our military is bombing. Even though Iranians are the ones bearing the brunt of our government’s aggression, their deaths and injuries are often treated as an afterthought. The loss of innocent lives caused by our military never seems to generate that much outrage.

There is no excuse for this attack. A civilian residence is not a legitimate military target. It is not enough to say that the military doesn’t target civilians when it has just struck a wedding party. There needs to be a thorough investigation:

Adil Haque, an international law professor at Rutgers Law School, said the U.S. military must address the attack “because on its face it seems inexplicable and indefensible.” There was no indication of any military target around the building, he noted.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2026/09/03/the-human-cost-of-the-iran-war/