John Ismay calls himself a Pentagon reporter for The New York Times, but on Tuesday, Ismay launched an unfounded and ill-informed allegation of hypocrisy against CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper for comments related to an Iranian attack on Israel involving cluster munitions.
Ismay recalled Cooper denouncing the attack, “Calling them ‘an inherently indiscriminate type of munition,’ Admiral Cooper said the ‘Iranian regime’ had launched ‘a reckless attack against civilian neighborhoods in Tel Aviv.’ A video showed dots of light streaking through the night sky from an incoming missile.”
He also notes, “The first Trump administration, however, defended the use of cluster munitions in a policy that remains in effect today.” 
After a history lesson on Trump 1.0’s decision to reverse the ban, Ismay also noted how, “The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which took effect in 2010, bans their use because of the harm they pose to noncombatants. More than 100 countries have signed that treaty, though not the United States, Russia, Israel or Iran.”
Ismay’s concerns are not only directed at Republicans, “The Biden administration made no public effort to reverse Mr. Shanahan’s 2017 decision, ultimately transferring large numbers of cluster munitions to Ukraine for use in its war with Russia.”
He also recalled, “By December 2024, the Biden administration had provided Kyiv with more than 100,000 155-millimeter shells that each contained nine small antitank mines.”
Thankfully, people who know what they are talking about took social media to debunk Ismay.
Decker Eveleth, who is a “nukes & deterrence analyst” at The Center for Naval Analyses, notes Cooper “is talking specifically about the Khorramshahr-4. Second, he is using the word ‘indiscriminate,’ which is a reference to the Geneva Convention Protocol 1 Article 51. Which the US has signed.”
Cooper’s statement dealt with attacks against a city, which is not at all analogous to U.S.-provided munitions to Ukraine. Eveleth tweets, “For example, Ukraine has been using cluster munitions against Russian military targets for years. Because those weapons have a precision that allows them to specifically target Russian forces, the Ukrainians are operating within the GC-P1, Art. 51.”
By contrast, Eveleth reports the Khorramshahr-4 “is very much unlike other cluster munitions, as its designed to disperse small, heat-shielded mortar-sized explosives at extreme high altitude. This allows the weapon to evade terminal missile defenses to an extent.”
If The New York Times’s Pentagon reporter can’t tell the difference between entrenched Russian troops and Israeli civilian neighborhoods, perhaps The New York Times should find him a different beat.
