Whereas President Trump threatened to strike locations in Iran that are at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture ; Whereas the United States has a proud history of protecting and avoiding intentional damage to and destruction of sites of historical and cultural significance, even and especially in times of armed conflict; Whereas President Abraham Lincoln’s Lieber Code of 1863 expresses that cultural property should be protected in times of armed conflict; Whereas, during World War II, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an order that military forces are bound to respect historical monuments so far as war allows; Whereas, following World War II, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict ( Hague Convention ), to which the United States is a party, requires that State Parties refrain from any act directed by way of reprisals against cultural property and solidified the principle that cultural property should not be targeted during conflict except in cases of imperative military necessity; Whereas, the most recent Department of Defense Law of War Manual, revised in 2016, specifically prohibits acts of hostility … directed against cultural property in the absence of imperative military necessity; Whereas, in 2004, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted those responsible for the intentional shelling of the Old City of Dubrovnik in Croatia, a World Heritage Site; Whereas the Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act ( Public Law 114–151 ) advanced the protection of cultural property at risk from conflicts in Syria and elsewhere and established an interagency Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee at the U.S. Department of State