On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran in the context of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that Omani mediators described as “within reach.” The negotiations, conducted as the U.S. amassed its naval and air fleets near Iran, sought to replace the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by the Obama administration in 2015 and repealed by the Trump administration in 2018. In June 2025, during a previous round of negotiations, the United States struck three nuclear facilities that President Trump described as a "spectacular military success," that left Iran’s nuclear facilities "completely and totally obliterated." The June 2025 U.S. operation was the third U.S. and/or Israeli attack on Iran since April 2024. In all three instances, Iran retaliated with restrained fire choosing to deescalate hostilities.
The United States and Israel claim their latest attack was a form of preventive self-defense, widely understood as illegal in international law as it neither meets the threshold of the Charter definition of self-defense - in the case of an armed attack - or the customary definition when an attack is imminent, where no other diplomatic solution is possible, and the force used is proportionate to the threat. In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, explained that because the U.S. believed that Israel’s strike on Iran was imminent, they decided to join the operation to minimize potential harm caused by anticipated Iranian retaliation. The operation has been roundly condemned as an unprovoked act of aggression by legal scholars. The UN Security Council has nevertheless been impotent to stem the war and its chambers were used by member states, either hosting U.S. military bases or permitting its access to local bases, to condemn Iran’s response.
Though the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza has systematically eroded the international legal regime, that does not sufficiently explain the lack of legal restraints on the United States and Israel. The war on Iran should, theoretically, be less subject to legal controversy as it is a form conventional warfare between states. What then, if anything, is the significance of the U.S. designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an Iranian state institution, as a foreign terrorist organization? Additionally, since the U.S.’s manipulation of the law of self-defense well precedes the genocide in Gaza, it is worthwhile to consider how the unprovoked attack on Iran both continues a legacy of U.S. imperial violence and may establish new precedents especially in the context of the Trump administration’s aggression against Venezuela and suffocating sanctions regime in Cuba.
Beyond structural questions, there are also significant legal issues concerning operational activities. In the first eight days of the war, U.S. and/or Israeli fire assassinated Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khameini, targeted a girls’ school in southern Iran, sunk an Iranian warship returning from naval drills at the invitation of India, struck oil depots causing “toxic black rain” and attacked a freshwater desalination plant in Qeshm Island. Iran has launched conventional missiles at Israel, targeted U.S. military bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE, and allegedly struck a desalination plant in Bahrain. The war has also escalated in Lebanon where Israeli fire, unrelenting notwithstanding the November 2024 ceasefire, has targeted central Beirut and forcibly displaced nearly a million civilians from southern Lebanon. What is the legality of these operations? What does the response by the diplomatic community and legal institutions illuminate about a shifting global order.
To address these issues, Jadaliyya invited five critical legal scholars, Luigi Daniele, Shahd Hammouri, Ata Hindi, Maryam Jamshidi, and Darryl Li, to participate in this roundtable discussion.
1. Why is the U.S.-Israeli joint attack on 28 February understood as aggression?
Maryam Jamshidi
The U.S./Israel attack on Iran is a clear and incontrovertible act of aggression. Under international law, states are prohibited from using force against other states unless that force is authorized by the Security Council under its Chapter VII powers or qualifies as self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. To enjoy a right of self-defense, a state must be the object of an armed attack that is either ongoing or “imminent” (imminence means the attack leaves “no moment for deliberation”). The exercise of self-defense must also be necessary to repel the attack and implemented in a proportionate way. An act of aggression, which is the most serious violation of the prohibition on the use of force, can trigger the right of self-defense. As reflected in General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) and the Rome Statute, an act of aggression includes attacks by the armed forces of one state against the territory of another state, the bombardment of the other state, or attacks on the armed forces of the state.
As applied here, there is no Chapter VII Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S./Israeli attacks on Iran. There is also no right to self-defense that either Israel or the United States can invoke. Their claim—that attacking Iran was lawful because Iran is supposedly developing a nuclear weapon or presents some kind of nebulous nuclear threat—is a demonstrably false and unacceptable basis for invoking the self-defense right. Trump himself bragged about “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program during the 12 day war in June 2025. Even before that attack, the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, a fact recently confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees nuclear proliferation issues. Indeed, since the 12 day war, evidence has suggested that Iran has not even been enriching uranium at all.
Even if Iran was in the process of building a bomb that would not constitute the sort of on-going or imminent attack required to invoke self-defense. That a state might in the indefinite future have the ability and desire to launch an unlawful armed attack against another state is not a basis for self-defense under international law according to the vast majority of commentators and states.
Since neither Israel nor the United States was authorized to engage in an armed attack against Iran, their substantial and wide-spread bombardment of Iranian territory and armed forces, which began on 28 February and continues as of this writing, is a textbook case of aggression, which is considered a war crime. As Adil Haque has argued, “there can be no fully lawful attacks or truly legitimate targets in a war of aggression.” I share this view: the U.S./Israeli aggression makes the entire conflict and all armed attacks undertaken by the United States and Israel unlawful, even where directed at otherwise lawfully targetable military objectives and combatants.
Shahd Hammouri
According to the rules on the use of force, armed attacks are unlawful under international law, except in self-defence. In this context, Iran did not attack any other state, and it did not pose any imminent threat to any other nation. There is no evidence to support a claim of pre-emptive self-defence, and given the history of bad-faith use of this doctrine, as well as its highly contested coherence as a doctrine, arguments based on this doctrine must be supported by strong empirical and legal evidence – elements that are absent in this case.
Furthermore, evidence demonstrates that the US and Israel undertook this act not in self-defence but in the pursuit of regional domination, territorial expansion, and economic expropriation. Their intention is repeatedly expressed in public statements by officials in both states. These statements are central to assessments of the use of force in this context, and further support the ascertainment that this act of armed aggression lacks any valid legal basis and amounts to a grave violation of international law. Going further, it was foreseeable that this act of aggression would not be contained in one jurisdiction but would spill over across the region, posing a threat to international peace and security.
2. Are there any legal implications to launching the attack during ongoing negotiations?
Ata Hindi
The situation is reminiscent of the scenes portrayed in the film Lion of the Desert. The great revolutionary leader, Omar Al-Mukhtar of Libya is asked to meet with representatives of Colonial Italy under the rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. In truth, the Italians partaking in “negotiations” were no more than an attempt to cover for further conflict. Before realizing that this is the case, Al-Mukhtar refers to terms brought further by the Italians as “absolute surrender.” This has been part of the colonial and imperial experience. The same conceptual designs, but in different fashion. Indeed, the current President, Donald Trump, known for his brilliant oratory skill and unmatched wordplay, demanded from Iran “unconditional surrender.” This tactic has been used twice with Iran.
As far as negotiations are concerned, there may be instances where there may be a duty to negotiate. Yet, regardless of whether such a duty exists, States partaking in negotiations must do so in good faith i.e. not do anything to screw it up absent certain circumstances. Here, the US did just that – screw it up. They carried out attacks against Iran while still technically in the middle of negotiations on various issues, particularly on the latter’s uranium enrichment. Indeed, only a couple of days before the US and Israel began their attacks, the Omani mediator, Foreign Minister Badr Bin Hamad Al Busaidi, claimed “substantial progress” and that “a peace deal is within our reach.” Indeed, the parties agreed to meet in Vienna to continue their discussions.
From the outset, the US attack on Iran was contrary to the rules on the prohibition on the use of force, and would amount to aggression. The illegal use of force is prohibited by the UN Charter and amounts to a serious breach of a peremptory norm of international law. Aggression is considered to be “the most serious and dangerous form of the illegal use of force” and, of course, also a serious breach. Regardless of negotiations, there are no exceptions to the prohibition on the use of force – minus self-defense or UN Security Council authorization. Indeed, it is precisely why the US, and various members of its administration, have played a classic game of Twist attempting to answer any questions on the war’s rationale. This has gone from everything to “they hit us a really long time ago” to “we care about your people all of a sudden” to “they were going to hit us like right before, or maybe some time later in future.” Trying to make sense of all this in more familiar terms, it has covered every track including humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect, pre-emptive self-defense, and preventive self-defense, and so forth. They have been beating that horse since forever (see Nicaragua). The only possible language which might have made some sense (but, ultimately doesn’t) is on imminence underlying pre-emptive action; i.e. an attack by Iran against the US was imminent. This was not the case. At least insofar as the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is concerned, the US was taking pre-emptive action in response to Israel’s threat to violate the prohibition of the use of force, which Rubio predicted might result in Iran attacking the US in response. Of course, Rubio would later backtrack on his nonsense.
Shahd Hammouri
This represents further evidence of the illegality of the act of aggression against Iran. As a rule of thumb, states must opt for peaceful solutions when the opportunity presents itself. Based on statements by Omani mediators hours before the attack, Iran was acting in good faith and a peaceful solution was possible. That said, there is no international legal basis for the negotiations as there was no premise for a conflict. The negotiations served as a forum for collective coercion against Iran.
Regarding nuclear weapons, nothing in international law prohibits Iran from having nuclear weapons for the purpose of self-defense, as asserted by the ICJ in the Nuclear Weapons case. The presumption that it is lawful to police Iran's nuclear program is premised purely on colonial logic, where states like the US and Israel are considered 'civilized' and therefore worthy of possessing those weapons, while states like Iran are not.
That said, it is important to note that the subject matter of the negotiations went well beyond the issue of nuclear weapons. As clearly noted by US and Israeli officials, the demand was the demilitarization of the state of Iran in one form or the other - a demand that lacks any legal basis. Such coercive modes of negotiation are strictly prohibited under the Vienna Convention, and consequent agreements are void. The notion that 'either you concede or we will attack you, economically squeeze your economy, or lead a media campaign to dismantle your government' constitutes unlawful coercion. Evidence of the catastrophic effects of such coercive dynamics is available in abundance when examining the contexts of Chile, Guatemala, Venezuela, etc. In this context, it is important to recall that these coercive dynamics were normalized in the context of Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah negotiations. The US and Israel were simply seeking to impose the same coercive dynamics on Iran in an act of unlawful intervention in internal affairs, in violation of its sovereignty.
3. What, if anything, is the relationship between the current war on Iran and genocide in Gaza? For example, did the genocide set any notable precedents in Gaza that are evidenced in Iran or should we understand the war on Iran as part of a broader legacy?
Darryl Li
This past weekend, Israeli pilots in U.S.-made warplanes dropped U.S.-made bombs on oil facilities around Tehran, unleashing fire and smoke that were vectorized by the city's climate -- the surrounding mountains trap pollutants, especially in the colder parts of the year. The resulting scene was apocalyptic: the daytime sky was blacked out and toxic black rain poured down, poisoning lungs, skins, and food supplies of 10 million people. As an inhumane act causing serious injury to physical health in the context of a widespread attack on a civilian population, the bombing plausibly meets the international legal definition of a crime against humanity.
It is altogether fitting that a war to end the Islamic Republic of Iran ends up recalling one of the regime's most formative early experiences: chemical warfare. Poison gas attacks by Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- supported by the U.S. and Iran's Arab neighbors across the Gulf -- were a hallmark of that terrible war. Although largely forgotten by those outside the region, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war was arguably the longest and bloodiest of any conflict fought between postcolonial states.
The ability to wage war is considered a fundamental attribute of state sovereignty in abstract debates over international law and international relations, but wars among the global south states that dominate the international community have been comparatively rare (there have been virtually none in east Asia and Latin America over the past 50 years). Indeed, the primary function of postcolonial sovereignty seems to have instead been to legitimize ongoing forms of Euro-American domination, including through hosting Western bases and military forces. Hence the nakedly one-sided UN Security Council resolution, co-sponsored by 140 members, condemning Iran's retaliatory attacks on neighboring countries without mentioning the war of aggression or those neighbors' role in materially aiding it. It seems that for too many states, the right to self-defense is best understood as the right to consent to Washington exercising that right on your behalf.
It is notable that since World War II, almost every U.S. military engagement outside the western hemisphere has avoided the juridical form of international armed conflict (i.e. war between states). The vast majority have been cast as assisting global south sovereigns in their own civil wars (what some legal scholars have called "internationalized armed conflict"). In some instances, if direct conflict with global south sovereigns could not be avoided, the U.S. sought some kind of multilateral sanction -- even if retroactively, as in the case of the 1999 Kosovo and 2003 Iraq wars (what apologists for imperialism termed "illegal but legitimate"). And of course, the paradigm of regime change combined the two, as wars against governments in Afghanistan and Iraq turned into counterinsurgencies in support of client regimes.
The aggression on Iran portends a return to the classic paradigm of war, just as the renaming of the Department of Defense signals a shift from blandly coercive universalism to nakedly aggressive unilateralism (even the resurfacing, so to speak, of submarine warfare feels like it was calibrated to Trumpian nostalgia for World War II). But the classic paradigm of war was made by and for Western states, we have yet to see how it will play out if generalized in a postcolonial world.
On the one hand, the aggression on Iran culmination of the logic of the war on terror, which recognizes no juridically equal adversary: from the labeling of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a state entity, as a terrorist organization, to the assassination of the head of a sovereign state. Yet notwithstanding the desire to treat Iran as a non-sovereign rodent meriting extermination, the United States has encountered something it has not had for a very long time: a state adversary that can fight back. And unlike insurgents that have defeated the U.S. through bogging them down in specific, contained arenas, Iran has so far succeeded in expanding the war across the region according to its own parameters and preferences. Trump boasts of decapitating the Islamic Republic, but is his own policy that most clearly resembles a headless chicken.
For decades, the unspoken rule of U.S. policy in the region has been that postcolonial states can have oil, or they can have large populations, but they cannot have both (Saudi Arabia's 30-million population is nearly half non-citizens), lest they pursue developmentalist agendas that would enable them to potentially confront the favored regional surrogate, Israel. This is why the war between Iran and Iraq -- two nation-states that had both oil and people -- represented both a high point and a low point of postcolonial sovereignty at once. It opened the door to the U.S. asserting dominance in the region, eventually neutralizing one of those states and is now looking to finish the job.
There has been much ink spilled about the contradictions, tragedies, and pathologies of postcolonial sovereignty, not least in regards to Iran. But the Zionist attack on oil facilities around Tehran reads as an attempt to make that sovereignty literally toxic, turning the source of Iran's autonomy into poison against its own people.
Maryam Jamshidi
I believe Israel is the primary antagonist in this war and that its actions are a byproduct both of its broader regional goals as well as its genocide in Gaza. Israel has long wanted to eliminate Iran as a regional actor. This is motivated by its enduring objective of fragmenting the Middle East into small ethnic and confessional enclaves that it can more easily dominate. As a country the size of Western Europe with a geographically important location and a population 9 to 10 times that of Israel’s, Iran is a natural regional power no matter who governs it. That makes it threatening to an Israel that has made regional domination and hegemony its primary security goals.
To achieve its aim of destabilizing and fragmenting Iran Israel has unleashed the total war approach it perfected to devastating effect in Gaza. The Israeli government has long flouted international rules governing the use of force and the conduct of war by ignoring or adopting interpretations of those laws that have largely emptied them of meaning. In Gaza, Israel has implemented this strategy of manipulating and eviscerating international law on the widest and most horrific scale to date. That strategy has been aimed at the total destruction of Hamas, the Gaza Strip, and its inhabitants. Indeed, these three objectives have been inextricably tied together by Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Though Israel’s earlier attacks on Lebanon (during the Lebanese Civil War and the 2006 war) as well as on Gaza itself (in 2008/09, 2012, 2014, 2018-19, 2021) all involved countless Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, the bounds of Israeli criminality have become entirely limitless in and through Gaza.
While robust and vociferous Western support for Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip prompted Israel to Gaza-ify its other regional “enemies,” the Western response to Israel’s 12 day war on Iran provided further direct confirmation that its Gazafication strategy in that country was particularly welcomed. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz summed up Western sentiment perfectly when he lauded Israel’s unlawful June aggression as “dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.” A few days later, the United States expressed even more enthusiasm for Israel’s aggression by directly participating in it through its own bombing campaign against Iran.
As with Gaza – though to a far lesser extent, for now - the ongoing aggression against Iran seeks the total and complete annihilation of the Iranian government and the Iranian state. It also most certainly seeks to destroy Iranian identity, a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional identity that has existed for millennia. Though Israel may not seek to destroy the people of Iran as such, the destruction of the state will leave the population exposed to insecurity and vulnerability for generations to come. While practices honed on the land and the bones of the Palestinian people have now been definitively exported to Iran, if Israel succeeds in its aims there, it will almost certainly export them to even more regional states over the coming years (they have already been deployed in Lebanon and Syria).
Shahd Hammouri
There are deep interrelations between the current aggression against Iran and the genocide in Gaza.
To begin with, Iran was the only state in the region to uphold its third-state responsibility and the duty to prevent genocide. Furthermore, Iran is the only state that respects the customary Palestinian, Lebanese, and Yemeni rights of resistance against violations of the right of self-determination by Israel in the first two cases, and by Saudi Arabia in the latter case. Secondly, Iran has maintained a policy that rejects coercive uses of the global market, and this policy is portrayed in a hostile light by states and actors whose interests are aligned with the current status quo of the global market.
Israel, as a settler colonial entity, maintains its domination through expansion - a policy evident in its foreign policy acts, state ideology, and officials' statements. Iran's position in the region limits Israel's capacity to pursue its expansionist aims. It is important to note that territorial expansion constitutes an unlawful act of aggression, and Israel, whose violations of international law have surpassed the threshold of crimes against international peace and security, has no legitimate claim over the regions its seeks to expand to.
During the Genocide in Gaza, US-led allied states used their privileged geopolitical position to prevent state cooperation to end the grave illegalities undertaken by Israel. They excessively employed coercive means to suppress contestation of atrocities committed by Israel internationally and nationally. This normalization has meant that international crimes such as targeting civilians, mass displacement, and weaponization of civilian infrastructure have been met with impunity. This impunity, which Israel has enjoyed since its founding, normalizes a standard of excessive human toll, and the use of coercive means under the guise of 'military necessity.'
4. Is the assassination of Ali Khamenei, a civilian spiritual leader in government, legal?
Shahd Hammouri
No. Arguments justifying the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei conveniently overlook the overall illegality of the act of aggression undertaken by the US and Israel. The overall umbrella of military conduct in Iran by foreign powers constitutes illegal aggression; no military acts on Iranian territory are lawful. Additionally, this act violates the customary rule of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states, as well as the Iranian people's right of self-determination.
Arguments seeking to justify the assassination of Ali Khamenei are premised on a civilizing narrative that endorses a colonial reading of the duty to protect. Evidence demonstrates that this reading of international law is conducive to the proliferation of warfare in violation of the primary principles of the UN Charter, which center the maintenance of international peace and security. From this perspective, the US and Israel justify their acts in the name of Iranian human rights. This is bad-faith argumentation that lacks any legal premises. Such acts constitute a form of alien domination and subjugation in violation of formative legal documents like the Declaration on Ending Colonialisation and the Declaration of Friendly Relations.
5. Is the attack on the IRIS Dena, an Iranian warship, returning from a naval drill in India, off the coast of Sri Lanka, a legal act of war?
Maryam Jamshidi
I believe the targeting of the IRIS Dena was unlawful. Admittedly, warships are presumptive military objectives and, on that basis, generally targetable during an armed conflict while in international waters or the territorial waters of parties to the conflict. While there are some exceptions to this rule relating to warships engaged in particular kinds of activities, the Dena does not appear to fall into any of those exceptions. All that being said, there are several reasons why the targeting of the Iranian warship was unlawful. The first is the most straightforward. As I explained in my answer to an earlier question, because this is an illegal war of aggression, all related armed attacks by the aggressor are unlawful even where directed at otherwise lawful targets, like warships. Three other principles of international humanitarian law also make this attack illegal: the principle of military necessity, the Martens Clause, and the prohibition on treacherous killings.
While there is no authoritative definition under international law, the principle of military necessity places limits on a state’s permissible military activities. In its most basic formulation, military necessity requires that a belligerent “apply only that amount and kind of force necessary to defeat the enemy.” Engaging in “cruelty” or inflicting “suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge” exceeds what military necessity allows. These humanitarian limits are further reinforced by the Martens Clause, which emphasizes the “elementary consideration[] of humanity” in war. Under the Clause, in all cases not covered by treaties or customary international law, civilians and combatants “remain under the protection and the rule of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity and the dictates of public conscience.” While the Martens Clause may not resolve every difficult case arising during an armed conflict, it serves “as the bone structure in a living body, providing guidelines in unforeseen cases. . . ” and highlights the general principle that “everything that is not prohibited is [not actually] lawful in war.” Finally, under international humanitarian law, it is prohibited and considered a war crime to “treacherously” kill or wound individuals belonging to the “hostile nation or army.” As described by one commentator, it is “‘the essence of treachery that the offender assumes a false character by which he deceives his enemy and thereby is able to effect a hostile act which, had he come under his true colours, he could not have done. He takes advantage of his enemy’s reliance on his honour.’” The concept of treachery, and its cousin “perfidy,” were once broad principles governing the means and methods of warfare, but were narrowed over the course of the 20th century. Despite this narrowing, the concept of treachery remains grounded in notions of good faith, respect, and trust between belligerents, which should continue to inform assessments of the prohibition’s scope.
Independent of the ongoing aggression by the United States and Israel, the strike on the IRIS Dena was unlawful based on these three principles of military necessity, the Martens Clause, and the prohibition on treacherous killing. On necessity, it is hard to see how torpedoing a Iranian warship far away from the field of battle, reportedly 2000 miles from Iran’s shores, which had been participating in a peaceful maritime exercise in India and that was reportedly unarmed and defenseless, was necessary to “defeat” Iran. Even if it was necessary for the United States to neutralize the ship, the Dena could have been captured instead of destroyed, especially given its reportedly defenseless nature as a result of its participation in the naval drill. U.S. forces would have known about this defenselessness given their own scheduled participation in the same naval exercise.
The principle of humanity, reflected in the Martens Clause, would also counsel in favor of using the less deadly alternative of capture. Since the ship posed no threat to U.S. forces and was on a non-military, ceremonial mission, the principle of humanity should have prompted U.S. officials to pursue that or other alternatives to torpedoing the ship and potentially killing the 180 persons who were reportedly aboard. Instead, the United States apparently chose to torpedo the ship because it was “more fun” than capture—suggesting that the action was precisely the sort of act prohibited by the principle of military necessity, namely one of “cruelty” amounting to the “infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering.”
Finally, the sinking of the Dena raises the possibility that the United States engaged in treacherous killing. According to reports, some components of the U.S. military decided, at the last minute, to withdraw from the Indian naval exercise as part of preparations for the attack on Iran. Other components did, however, participate. Some have speculated that, in doing so, these U.S. military assets may have used the situation to build a “targeting picture” that was later shared with the U.S. submarine that sank the Dena. They have also argued, however, that this would constituted mere “intelligence gather[ing] during a multilateral exercise” and that no “legal framework” clearly prohibits it. Contrary to this view, I believe these actions may well fall within the scope of the treachery prohibition. Assuming these speculations are correct, the United States exploited the naval exercise’s ceremonial setting, while the Dena’s literal guard was down, to collect information about the defenseless ship in order to target the ship shortly thereafter. That targeting resulted in the killing of at least 87 and injury to 32 persons with dozens still missing at sea. These circumstances seem to comport with precisely the sort of killing and injury prohibited as treacherous under international law. At the very least, they fall within the spirit of the prohibition.
Shahd Hammouri
No, this ship was not engaged in combat, and the officers on board were not armed. This constitutes a violation of Rule 47 of customary international law regarding combatants hors du combat. Furthermore, the attack violated customary principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack. Indiscriminate methods or attacks causing excessive collateral damage are forbidden. The US and Israel took no measures to limit civilian casualties or warn the officials on board to evacuate before the bombing of the ship, leading to the murder of over 80 Iranians on board.
6. How should we understand the attacks on civilian infrastructure, namely the attacks on oil depots as well as freshwater desalination plants in Qeshm Island and Bahrain?
Maryam Jamshidi
These attacks are almost certainly unlawful. Under international humanitarian law (IHL), while military objectives can be deliberately attacked, civilian objectives cannot be. IHL defines military objectives as “objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture, or neutralization in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” Civilian objectives are defined as objects that are not military objectives. Even where only military objectives are deliberately attacked, states must still ensure those attacks do not cause disproportionate harm to civilians or civilian objectives. Under IHL, a disproportionate attack is one that “may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”
Starting with the desalination plants, there is no indication the plants in Bahrain or on Qeshm Island, Iran were military objectives. Instead, both plants appear to be civilian objectives that provide vital and scarce freshwater resources to people living in those areas. Their deliberate targeting would, as such, be a war crime. Even if they were valid military objectives, their targeting would almost certainly be disproportionate or even wholly prohibited. Attacking those plants would potentially deprive countless civilians of freshwater, which is necessary to sustaining human life. It is hard to imagine a legitimate military objective that could justify such an extreme deprivation of life sustaining objects. In fact, purposely attempting to deprive an enemy force of access to such life-sustaining resources—which may have been the goal at least with respect to the Qeshm strike—is prohibited under IHL where civilians are also impacted. Indeed, given that both desalination plants appear to be indispensable to the survival of civilians, if either of these attacks were undertaken for the purpose of depriving their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the enemy, that would make the attack wholly prohibited (absent certain narrow exceptions), without even requiring a proportionality analysis. Whether disproportionate or wholly prohibited, the attacks against the freshwater desalination plants could potentially be considered war crimes.
The same analysis largely applies to Israel’s direct strikes against major oil depots in and around Tehran. These depots were reportedly used for civilian purposes, making their deliberate targeting unlawful war crimes. If, on the other hand, they were valid military objectives, attacking them would still be unlawful as it risked and, in fact, caused harm wildly disproportionate to any valid military objective. These depots were located near civilian areas in Iran’s largest and most densely populated city. As a result, their targeting was likely to cause substantial damage to surrounding civilian homes and businesses, as well as injury and death to residents. Their destruction also risked causing significant environmental damage, including by polluting the air, water, and land. Indeed, in the aftermath of the strikes, the World Health Organization released a statement warning that “[d]amage to petroleum facilities in Iran risks contaminating food, water and air—hazards that can have severe health impacts especially on children, older people, and people with pre-existing medical conditions. Rain laden with oil has been reported falling in parts of the country.” This sort of extensive environmental damage is categorically condemned by international law, which provides that “care shall be taken in warfare to protect the natural environment against widespread, long-term and severe damage.” This means that “the use of methods or means of warfare which are intended or may be expected to cause such damage to the natural environment and thereby to prejudice the health or survival of the population” is prohibited. The consequences of the oil depot strikes were also entirely predictable. During the First Gulf War in the early 1990s, Iraq set hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells on fire. Those oil well fires caused significant damage to the surrounding environment. For all these reasons, even if the oil depots were a valid military objective, attacking them likely constitutes a war crime.
7. Many of the tactics used in the genocide in Gaza, (i.e., targeting hospitals, citing human shielding, troubling casualty figures) are evident in both Iran and Lebanon. How should we make sense of these tactics and the racial tropes upon which they rely?
Luigi Daniele
In Gaza, Israel has de facto abolished the rule of distinction between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives, on a scale and with a level of systematicity unseen in the armed conflicts of contemporaneity. Through the mechanism some of us called ‘humanitarian camouflage,’ Israel has encoded and encrypted in its military and laws of war doctrines its genocidal intent. It has done so by representing the entirety of the human-cultural-political-geographical complex that was Gaza as a unified and colossal “lawful” target, one composed by a continuum of terrorists, military objectives, human shields, and collateral damages. With the decisive contribution of its allies in Western politics, media, and institutions, reproducing these discourses, it has been proposed and accepted that whenever Palestinian civilians were killed en masse, whenever entire residential neighborhoods were razed, that was to be attributed, presumptively, and blamed on, the shielding tactics of Palestinian armed groups, or not blamed at all, as “lawful” collateral killing. With such unacceptable distortions of jus in bello, single strikes regularly killing 100, 150 civilians and children each, have been justified as lawful and blamed on Palestinian fighters. The legal attribution of responsibilities for attacks has been capsized: killing civilians in attacks has become fault of the attacked, not of the attackers! Therefore, if one attack can “lawfully” kill 150 civilians and children, 1000 attacks can exterminate 150,000, 2,000 attacks can exterminate 300,000, and so on… Until the destruction of an entire national group, or at least a substantial part of it, is presented as an entirely legitimate and lawful collateral damage. The special intent of genocide is therefore met, and it becomes a principle of military policy, even if the destruction of the groups is framed as a means, rather than as the ultimate end (which is what every genocidal ideology in history has done).
In Iran and Lebanon we are witnessing the experimentation and exportation of this model, even if on a smaller scale of mass killing and destruction in comparison to Gaza. We have the first proof of what we have been saying all along: if the Gaza genocide remains unpunished, if Western states abandon international justice, if the thousands of war crimes through which Israel has carried out its genocide are not adjudicated, then the wars of our world and of the future will become wars against civilians, wars of extermination. As Lemkin warned in Axis Rule, “genocide is the antithesis of the Rousseau-Portalis doctrine,” that is the doctrine postulating since the Enlightenment that war is a relationship between sovereign authorities and their armies, not between human beings and peoples as such. The Israeli-US war profiteering complex is bringing us back of hundreds of years, to a world where wars are again a tribal blood feud, a prehistoric barbarity of indiscriminate massacres.
Shahd Hammouri
Israel has normalized bad-faith interpretations of international law through 'humanitarian camouflage', and the inversion of legal frameworks to justify atrocities. This has led to what UN experts warned of as placing 'international law on a knife's edge.' In effect, we now see the targeting of hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure in both Iran and Lebanon by Israel, continuing a military strategy of excessive civilian killing as a pressure tactic that is coercively normalised and deceptively marginalised and obfuscated in front of voters in allied states supporting Israeli aggression. This sadistic form of warfare is now coined as the ‘Gaza Doctrine’, and it is being used against Lebanon and Iran.
8. Does Iran have the right to attack U.S. military bases across the Gulf region and do host Gulf states have the retaliate in self-defense?
Ata Hindi
With respect to Iran’s attacks on neighboring States, on March 11th, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2817, which condemned Iran’s attacks against the territories of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The resolution made no mention of the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran. There is general understanding amongst States that so long as State A has not directed an attack against State B, then State B cannot attack State A. So long as it is unclear as to what extent these bases are involved in military operations, the Iran’s claim of self-defense would be under scrutiny. Indeed, Iran has even made this argument in Oil Platforms.
The regional Gulf States have firmly told Iran that the US has not carried out attacks from its territories, while Iran insists that its attacks are targeting only US bases in those Gulf States and that they believe that those bases are being used in some “form or manner” to carry out US operations. In response to the resolution, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN referred to UN General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX), which considers “[t]he action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State” – without demonstrating that it has been the case.
Regardless of the legality under the jus ad bellum, all parties must comply with their obligations under the jus in bello – particularly from the core rules pertaining to distinction, proportionality, and precautions.
Shahd Hammouri
Yes, Iran has the right to attack US military bases across the Persian Gulf Region because it can be reasonably assumed that they are aiding and abetting an illegal aggression for the purposes of deciding on military targets. In effect, these states do not have the right to act in self-defense before using non-violent means of conflict resolution. Iran has repeatedly noted that adherence to its international legal obligations of non-cooperation with illegal aggression would result in ending the attacks. Further, the doctrine of clean hands demands that one cannot act in self-defense when they are themselves in violation of their duties.
Is it reasonable to presume that some states in the Persian Gulf region are aiding and abetting the illegal aggression? To begin with, these states have joint military agreements with the US. These agreements were signed under the pretext of collective military action. While often framed as collective self-defense, this framing masks the fact that they are essentially agreements for collective military action. Those agreements, along with the presence of US military bases and extensive evidence of military cooperation, allow Iranians to reasonably presume that these states are aiding and abetting the illegal occupation unless proven otherwise in good faith.
Furthermore, an attack on US bases is not necessarily an infringement of state sovereignty. This area of the law is ambiguous simply because only the most powerful states keep military bases, and the more power you have – the higher your capacity to influence law-making becomes. It is important to note that we must not normalize the presence of foreign military bases for the US all over the world – there is no justification for those bases. Claims that they are necessary to protect US interests are deeply problematic as they normalize a worldview that grants the US the right to global military supremacy and equates the interests of the business elite with the interests of the US. This presumes that these 'interests' are superior to the interests of other humans. These bases are situated in legally ambiguous terrain, that retains coercive elements in global relations, and the assessment of these bases must take anchor the doctrines of equal sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention at its core.
9. Is there a relationship between the U.S.’s brazen campaign in Iran and its campaigns against Venezuela and Cuba? How may the Iran war, for example, be considered the first war under Trump’s Board of Peace?
Shahd Hammouri
Indeed, the US empire recognizes that its privileged economic positioning since the end of the Cold War is ending. The centrality of the US dollar is shaken, and the strength of its local market is past its peak. In effect, the US has shifted its mode of operation away from tools of soft power like debt and law-making by dismantling USAID and undermining the international legal system. Instead of using soft-power forms of coercion, the US is now opting for direct physical coercion (assassinations and kidnappings) and stronger forms of economic coercion (tariffs and more stringent sanctions) to assert its economic dominance. To control energy supplies, the US invaded Venezuela and appropriated its natural resources – in a grave violation of self-determination and sovereignty over natural resources. To control rare earth minerals, the US is threatening Greenland.
The Board of Peace was established as an alternative body to the United Nations to enact this shift in US politics. The Board of Peace signaled an alliance of states that accept US dominance and agree to its policy shift from soft-power coercion to physical and economic coercion, in a very Orwellian setting where war is peace.
Maryam Jamshidi
I’m not sure if the war in Iran is the “first war” of the Board of Peace. In fact, it may result in its undoing. What I do believe, though, is that Trump’s success in Venezuela emboldened him to pursue the same result in other countries that have long been on America’s hit list.
I also believe that, if the Venezuelan leadership had taken the Iranian route and attempted to uphold their independence and sovereignty instead of giving into U.S. designs, the Americans probably would not have joined yet another Israeli war on Iran so soon.
Even though the United States has failed so far to dismantle the Iranian government, which looks to be far from collapse, and even though the Iranians defied Trump by electing a new Supreme Leader he expressly disapproved of, U.S. aggression on Iran is already being used to twist another state, Cuba, into submission. Despite having no real political success to show for itself in the Iranian theater, the United States is shamelessly using that war to put pressure on Cuba to capitulate to its demands. Just a few days ago, Trump even floated the idea of a “friendly takeover” of the country.
There is another thing I’m sure of in this moment of otherwise substantial uncertainty: if the United States and Israel succeed in their regime change objectives in Iran, Trump, and perhaps even Netanyahu, will exact similar demands of other countries, whether allies or enemies. In my view, the future of international peace and security depends on Iran emerging victorious from this battle. As the Iranians themselves have said, Iran is not just fighting for its own survival. It is fighting for the region and for the world.