The war against Iran

On June 13, Benjamin Netanyahu's government launched a bombing campaign against military installations and nuclear plants, as well as against senior officials and civilian and military leaders of the Iranian regime. Iran has responded by launching waves of missiles and drones against Israeli territory. President Trump has announced US involvement in the conflict with a targeted attack on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21 to render them useless. Trump boasted of his country's enormous military power, using aircraft and bombs that no other army possesses.

These events leave international law in a bad light. First of all, it's striking how little relevance Trump gives to his campaign promise not to enter into wars during his term. He has just done so in spectacular fashion. In the United States, Congress is the body that declares war, but American presidents have circumvented this constitutional precept through military interventions of various kinds. Trump has followed this dangerous trend in this case, but has threatened to continue attacking Iran and become even more deeply involved in the conflict if his administration does not agree to an agreement satisfactory to Israel and the United States. This would necessarily require the agreement of Congress, and I doubt he would obtain it.

Israel and the United States have no right to carry out these acts of armed aggression against Iran in violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They claim a false preemptive self-defense. It consists of anticipating future threats (impossible to prove a priori) that the Iranian regime could one day trigger, anticipating them in time to avoid them through armed aggression against it. These risks revolve primarily around Iran's nuclear program and the threat of nuclear weapons being used against Israel, a risk Israel has been warning about for decades. Israel does possess nuclear weapons. It is logical that it does not want any other state in the region to possess them, least of all the Iranian regime. It is the law of the funnel: it is about enjoying a last and exclusive military reason to deter any enemy.

The Iranian clerics' regime is in trouble. Following the end of the Assad-allied dictatorship in Syria, the significant weakening of its armed forces in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Gaza (Hamas) after October 7, 2023, the bombing campaigns against the Houthis in Yemen, and a relatively favorable climate in its Arab neighbors, Netanyahu has decided not only to put an end to Iran's nuclear program but, if he is allowed to and able, to put an end to the ayatollahs' regime itself.

Whether you like it or not, international law neither establishes nor imposes a democratic regime on the states of the system, which are free to govern themselves as they see fit. A glance at the map is enough to confirm this. Of course, the Iranian regime is rejected for its clerical despotism, its disregard for human rights, and its ties to Hezbollah and Hamas. But attempting regime change from outside and by force is a flagrant violation of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Putin is also criticized for his attempt to change the Ukrainian political regime through armed aggression, which he accuses of being pro-Nazi.