The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) recently declined to pursue a case against Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She did, however, issue a lengthy nonbinding statement arguing that it is “reasonable” to believe that Israel occupies Gaza, although it has no troops or officials there. Since the opinion makes a mockery of legal reasoning and relevant precedent, what is its basis? Eugene Kontorovich writes:

[T]he prosecutor astonishingly relies on the view of “the international community” that Gaza is occupied. This view is derived from two UN General Assembly (GA) resolutions that call Gaza part of “Occupied Palestinian Territories” without explaining how this comports with customary international-law definitions of occupation. This is perhaps the most surprising part of the prosecutor’s memo. The GA is an explicitly political body. Occupation is a legal status with a legal definition established by treaty and custom. Deferring to a political body to determine a legal question effectively turns the ICC into an adjunct of world opinion—a political popularity contest rather than an arbiter of impartial and general norms.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days