UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 21 -- Vassily Nebenzia's account of the Iran war has one author and one victim, and what makes it effective is that the opening move is a matter of record. The United States did strike first.

"We know that the genesis of the conflict is not in what Iran did or what it didn't do, but the reckless and unprovoked aggression that US waged against Iran," Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations told reporters on Thursday.

On the narrow question of who began it, the record supports him. The war opened on February 28 with joint American and Israeli air operations against Iran, run under the American code name Operation Epic Fury. Iran did not initiate that. Any account of the conflict that starts with Irania...