No War With Iran
For 18 years, the Iranian nuclear programme has been one of the top 10 targeting objectives of the US intelligence services. In 2007 they first conducted a formal inter-agency review. It is done every year. This is not a minor process. A great deal of input is received from dozens of Washington stakeholders, led by the CIA.
The result has been the same every single year. Iran is not currently seeking to produce an nuclear weapon. Many people know that Tulsi Gabbard delivered this assessment in spring this year. Not many people realise that this was in no sense specific to Tulsi Gabbard and she was delivering the same assessment, through the same process, that Directors of National Intelligence under both Republican and Democrat administrations had given.
Nothing changed. The only thing that changed is Netanyahu’s attack on Iran. Trump appears able to get away with simply stating that he does not care what the intelligence agencies say. It is harder for Starmer to do that.
British and American armed forces are already in this war, shooting down Iranian missiles, refuelling Israeli bombers (alongside the Germans) and providing targeting information. Military supplies are shipped to Israel through RAF Akrotiri – which is a British sovereign colony on Cyprus – and Israeli bombers have certainly landed there in the last week; whether starting bombing runs from there, I cannot currently confirm.
There is no public opinion in the UK supporting British participation in an attack on Iran, despite massive and continual propaganda on all state and corporate media. I do not believe anybody informed solely by the mainstream media this last fortnight would have any idea that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, or that there is no evidence Iran was producing them.
The British government has a massive parliamentary majority – gained on just 31% of the vote – and a Conservative “opposition” even more keen to attack Iran than the crazed Zionists Starmer and Lammy. I do not see how they can be prevented from attacking Iran. But they will try hard to fix public opinion. It is therefore essential that MI6’s view, that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon, is kept quiet.
When Blair produced a dossier of “intelligence” lies to justify the destruction of Iraq, he was fortunate in having Richard Dearlove as Head of MI6, who was not just the most right-wing ideologue ever to hold the position, but one of the most right-wing men anywhere in England. Dearlove believed the moral case for the war was more important than the truth about Iraqi WMD.
Blair also had Sir John Scarlett as Head of the Joint Intelligence Committee and next Head of MI6. Scarlett passionately believed that the case for advancing the career of John Scarlett was more important than the truth about Iraqi WMD.
It is worth noting – and a prime example of how the neoliberal world works – that the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, is now an executive of British Petroleum. That company controlled Iran for decades, installed the fake Pahlavi “Shah” in 1921 and engineered and financed the coup that ended democracy in Iran in 1953. The appalling dictatorship of the Shah after that led directly to the theocratic revolution.
BP desperately want Iran’s oil back, so ex MI6 Head Sawers has been all over the airwaves advocating war on Iran. Meanwhile it is not an accident that two days ago, a new Head of MI6 was chosen and installed. Starmer has found his Dearlove.
The appointment was made by David Lammy. Blaise Metreweli was chosen ahead of more obvious candidates, who had served longer in MI6, had more operational experience, and were better analysts or better managers. However Metreweli – who spent much of her career in the Middle East – is a fanatical Zionist. She worked closely with Israel on technologies for surveillance and assassination.
Metreweli developed projects with both Pegasus and Palantir and was intimately connected to Israel’s use of new forms of attack in Lebanon and Iran. She was strongly endorsed to Lammy by Mossad as the next MI6 head. MI6 and the FCDO are inextricably connected. They work literally cheek by jowl in Embassies around the world, and MI6 HQ staff in London have cover jobs in the FCDO.
FCDO officials are extremely unhappy with the UK’s cooperation in Genocide in Gaza, with hundreds of them having been told by Lammy to shut up or resign. There is consternation at Mossad having designated the next Head of MI6. I asked my contact – a senior FCDO figure – whether Metreweli had involvement in the pager attacks in Lebanon. The reply was “Not 100% sure, but probably yes.”
Expect an imminent announcement that MI6 has determined that Iran was indeed about to produce a nuclear bomb.
The government appears to be justifying its current military involvement as the need to defend an “ally”, Israel. Emily Thornberry, a senior government MP and a lawyer, stated last night on BBC Newsnight that the legal right to take military action rested on our “right to defend our friends”. She did not use the word “ally”, and there is no such right as Thornberry posited.
Starmer and Lammy both frequently call Israel an “ally” but there is no public treaty of alliance available. There is a secret UK/Israel Defence Co-Operation Agreement of 2020. It is not known whether this amounts to a treaty of mutual defence.
Such treaties are supposed to be public and registered, not least because part of the alleged purpose is deterrence. You can read all the founding treaties of NATO.
The notion that the UK may go to war on the basis of a Treaty of Alliance that is secret from the British people, is so morally abhorrent it ought not to be able to be mooted, let alone acted upon. But democracy is dead in the UK, to the extent that people have forgotten its meaning.
Much worse, of course, is that this is not a case of mutual defence but of mutual offence. It was Israel that attacked Iran.
In standing alongside Israel, as in standing alongside Ukraine, the UK is condoning terrorist tactics such as the use of car bombs by both Ukrainian and Iranian “allies”. On what moral ground therefore does the UK stand in condemning the use of car bombs on the streets of London, when it supports our “allies” in their use?
You may recall that I recently published two posts focusing on remarkable fake terrorism plot narratives being heavily promoted by the UK security services in the mainstream media. Both revolved around alleged actions against Iran International, an extraordinary Saudi- and CIA-funded fake media organisation that promotes the return of the Pahlavi Shah in alliance with Israel and Iranian Sunnis.
From the Assange campaign, I have contacts on the libertarian side of MAGA that might surprise you, some actually in the Administration. I am told that the endgame being proposed in Washington by Israel and Saudi Arabia is Iranian regime change with the return of the Shah and a Sunni Prime Minister.
Remember there was no war with Iran yet, at the time I wrote those two articles about the remarkable happenings involving the security services and Iran International. This from my first article:
The connections all now click perfectly into place.
The UK has dived deep into the depths of immorality in which Zionism thrives. The consequences will be appalling.
Western governments’ abandonment of the very system of international law which they created was embodied in a tweet from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which sought to justify the illegal Israeli attack on Iran as “Targeted strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities”.
The former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Authority, Mohamed ElBaradei, was left to point out that far from a justification, it is specifically against international law to target nuclear facilities.
He refers to Article 56 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. While we are on the subject, you might also wish to see article 54:
It is worth noting that the exception on destruction of foodstuffs at Article 5 refers to the right of a country which is defending against invasion, not which is invading another country. It means that it is not illegal for a country to destroy crops and stocks of its own, on its own territory. Which is to say a scorched-earth policy against an invader is legal. It does not give the right to refuse supplies to a population under occupation.
The German justification was of course just part of a chorus of Western support for the Israeli attack on Iran, in which numerous Western leaders all parroted a co-ordinated line about “Israel’s right of self-defence”, even as Israel conducted an entirely illegal and unprovoked attack on Iran during peace talks.
There are dozens of examples, but I give you the openly genocidal von der Leyen as one:
On Thursday, before Israel attacked Iran, I attended the UN General Assembly debate on Palestine. This had limited utility as it mandated no specific measures and did not suspend Israel from the United Nations, the one truly useful action the General Assembly has the power to implement.
The motion called for an immediate ceasefire and for states to take “all necessary measures”, but that is the last we shall hear of it. It passed by 150 votes to 12, with opposition from the United States, its de facto colonies and the small far-right collection of Argentina, Paraguay etc.
But there was one interesting point in the Statements, known as Explanations of Vote, of the national delegations. These too were very routine, with Arab states that have not the slightest intention of actually doing anything, condemning Israel and western nations all launching blood-curdling condemnations of Hamas (yes, really, that was still their priority, 60,000 dead Palestinian civilians later).
But the UK explanation of vote made one point that absolutely nobody else made. It stuck out like a sore thumb. The British Ambassador to the UN stated that
“While the UK voted in favour of this resolution, we wish to clarify that our long-standing position remains that there is no legal obligation on states to ensure respect for international law by third parties.”
When the EOV was published, this part of the statement was bolstered by a reference to Common Article 1 of the Geneva Convention. I do not recall her actually saying this and it is not in my notes.
Common Article 1 (so called because it is present in every one of the Geneva Conventions) reads:
Article 1
The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.
So why did the UK, and the UK alone, say that it is not responsible for ensuring that other parties comply with international law, adding later a specific reference to the Geneva Conventions?
It is perfectly simple. Starmer and Lammy are terrified about future charges of complicity in Israeli war crimes. So the UK, only, feels it necessary to emphasise that they do not bear legal responsibility for Israel’s actions.
They claim they are not responsible for what Israel did with the supplies of UK munitions, which the UK increased to fuel the genocide.
They claim they are not responsible for what Israel did with the targeting information they gave Israel on a daily basis from RAF Akrotiri flights over Gaza.
They claim they are not responsible for the Israeli use of weapons flown in through the UK and Akrotiri.
They claim they are not responsible for use of the F-35 jets attacking Iran now, which they continue to supply with UK-manufactured spare parts.
We simply do not yet know what else they have done to support Israel based on the secret UK-Israeli defence treaty, but whatever it is, Starmer and Lammy want to make absolutely plain that the UK had no responsibility to prevent Israel from committing war crimes.
The claim that this is longstanding British policy is of course a rather frivolous bit of gaslighting. Indeed given that this argument runs completely counter to the doctrine of “the responsibility to protect” – of which the UK was the leading international proponent – it is simple nonsense.
[As it happens I always opposed the “responsibility to protect” argument because it is used as an excuse for Imperialism, cf. the destruction of Libya.]
The Genocide Convention in fact explicitly does create a duty on states to prevent genocide by third parties.
Article I of the Genocide Convention reads:
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
So the declaration by Starmer and Lammy of not bearing responsibility really does not wash. The interesting thing is that they felt compelled to make it.
The evening after the debate I attended receptions hosted by both the British Ambassador and then by the Russian Ambassador, and I spoke to a large number of Ambassadors to the UN. Of course we discussed the debate, and everybody had noticed both the extraordinary and unusual addition to the UK statement and its motive.
They all specifically realised it was an effort to back away from responsibility for complicity in Israeli crimes.
I understand and share your disappointment at the collapse of international law. But I can tell you that the prospect of eventual retribution at the Hague still terrifies Starmer and Lammy.
Netanyahu’s desperate gamble in attacking Iran is an attempt to force the USA to join the war on Israel’s behalf, and to prevent peace talks.
It is of course simply untrue that Iran was about to produce a nuclear weapon. Every Spring a CIA-led US intelligence exercise formally reviews the situation, and the firm position of Five Eyes intelligence remains that Iran genuinely was not seeking to make a nuclear weapon.
I hope that Iran learns the lesson of Southern Lebanon. There, over many months, Israeli air superiority enabled them to substantially degrade missile systems of various resistance factions. Israel does – not least because of the traitors ruling Jordan and Syria – have air superiority over Iran. In a long war of attrition, Israeli bombing raids could do real damage to Iranian capabilities.
Iran’s best strategy would be to view this as the existential crisis, and seriously unload its missile capacity on Israel without restraint. The period of measured tit-for-tat reprisals is at an end. The decision of nuclear-armed Pakistan to stand behind Iran was extremely helpful. These are early days in the Israeli-Iranian war. I do not sense any popular enthusiasm in the USA to be involved. Even the mainstream American media is characterising Iranian attacks as “retaliation” and the Israeli victim card is no longer as Platinum as it used to be here in the USA.
Germany has been refuelling Israeli jets en route to attack Iran, and the UK may also have been doing so. Starmer and Macron have both expressed determination to defend Israel with their own military but both would face massive popular resistance.
We wait to see what happens next. But having lived through vicious Israeli bombardment of Beirut, having been menaced by drones in the Bekaa Valley, having stood on the line at Kfar Kila while a twelve-year-old boy was shot standing next to my producer, having witnessed 100,000 Lebanese homes destroyed, I have no sympathy left for Tel Aviv.
No to war with Iran
As Jeanette Rankin once said, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran has started an earthquake—and war—with no winners save a few murderous old men who rule over their subjects with no thought for the people’s lives or safety. In a fight between fascist despots, the losers are all the peoples of Iran, Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East; the cause of global peace and disarmament; and peace-loving people across the world.
Now, the task of peace-loving people in the United States is to stop our own aspiring fascist despot from bringing the United States deeper into this war.
Click here to urge your Senators to say NO to war with Iran!
This Tuesday, Senator Tim Kaine introduced a War Powers Resolution into the Senate to stop Trump from bringing the US into a senseless war with Iran. The next day, a similar resolution was introduced in the House by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) to invoke the War Powers Act.
Because the Senate vote is privileged, it must come up for a vote on the floor—which could come at any moment. MAGA is split on this issue, and the American people do not want another senseless US war in the Middle East. We have a real chance to stop this. It is imperative that we contact our Senators as soon as possible and urge them to support Senator Kaine’s War Powers Resolution. Please make calls to your Senators today:
Murderous old men—the fascist Netanyahu government, MAGA war hawks, and their enablers in the US and international media—claim Israeli’s unprovoked and illegal attacks were necessary to prevent the imminent risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them to attack Israel. That is a lie. While Iran possesses nuclear enrichment facilities, there is no evidence they were pursuing or even seriously contemplating building nuclear weapons—and were they ever to begin doing so, this process would take many months, and likely years. In fact, Iran was engaging in serious, good-faith negotiations with the Trump administration to reach a nuclear peace agreement, which would have eliminated any risk of nuclear armament, and which had been widely reported to be making progress. The normalization of US-Iranian relations and the lifting of crippling sanctions would have set Iran on a path to greater prosperity and peaceful integration within the Middle East and world economy—and it was this that Israeli leadership could not tolerate. It was the threat of peace, not war, that motivated the maniacal Netanyahu regime to act.
We have been down this road before. Spurious claims about nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons possession were used to justify the US invasion of Iraq and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In both cases, the aggressor nations—the US and Russia—were the only ones who possessed dangerous, deadly stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and thus the only rea imminent threat. So too, today, with Israel. The notion of a “preemptive war” or “preventive war” is both illegal under international law and self-evidently nonsensical. Starting a war to prevent a war is like using gasoline to put out a gas leak.
The Netanyahu government’s unprovoked and murderous attacks send a message—not just to Iran, but to all other countries—that disarmament does not work, peace deals are a lie, and the only means to ensure your country won’t be arbitrarily attacked by a larger, aggressive power is, in fact, to acquire nuclear weapons. This makes it more likely that more regimes will do more to get access to or increase their stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Whatever short-term damage Israeli strikes may have done to Iranian military and nuclear facilities, the long-term damage to the cause of global nuclear disarmament and world peace is incalculably greater.
Murderous old men and their media enablers also claim that this war will topple the Islamic Republic and “liberate” the Iranian people. That, too, is a lie. Not only because it is painfully clear that neither the Netanyahu nor the Trump regime have any actual plan for or interest in supporting a post-regime Iranian Reconstruction. Not only because US-backed “regime change” efforts have proven a patent failure, across more than a century of coups and coup attempts, including the 1953 coup that ousted Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. It is also because the single thing that will most harm the efforts of the Iranian people to topple their oppressive autocratic regime is an unprovoked attack on Iranian soil from a hostile foreign power.
If Netanyahu (or Trump) genuinely wanted to support the Iranian people in democratic reform, attacking Iran unprovoked is the last thing they would or should do. The Iranian regime is despotic, deeply unpopular, and has been the subject of mass-scale peaceful resistance movements from the Iranian people themselves, from the 1999 and 2003 student protests to the 2009 Green Revolution, to the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, and beyond. But attacks on sovereign Iranian territory and the killing of innocent Iranian civilians from a hostile foreign power will greatly weaken domestic protests, strengthen the regime, and inure it to criticism.
That’s because one—perhaps the only—thing wars are good for is shoring up the powers of despotic leaders. That’s as true of the despots in Iran as it is of the despots in Israel. And it is true of our own wannabe despot in the United States.
Now is a time for all peace-loving peoples to unite against the machinations of their murderous regimes. Down with despots everywhere, and for self-determination, sovereignty, and peace.
US Weighs Deeper Involvement in Israel’s Illegal Attacks Against Iran
Trump says he will decide within two weeks whether to join Israel’s war on Iran.
U.S. B-2 and B-52 bombers on Diego Garcia
As Donald Trump threatens to further enmesh the U.S. in Israel’s war against Iran with direct strikes, legal experts warn that Israel’s attacks violate international law, and that U.S. attacks would also violate constitutional and statutory law.
Israel began its war on Iran on June 12, with an attack that seemed intended to distract global attention from its genocide in Gaza. Since then, the Israeli regime has killed at least 11 top Iranian generals and struck nuclear sites and missile launchers, in addition to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. By the fifth day, Israel had damaged Iran’s energy installations, nuclear infrastructure, command centers, and the state television station.
Iran has responded to the Israeli assault by shooting missiles into Israel, many of which have been intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, that the U.S. helps fund and support. As of June 17, Iran’s health ministry reported that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people and wounded more than 1,800 in Iran. Independent observers place the death toll within Iran at over 600. At least 24 Israelis have been killed and about 600 wounded.
“The US provided the Israeli regime with [the] greenlight for its surprise attack on Iran, the distraction of feigned peace talks to facilitate the attack, US tax dollars to finance the operation, the intelligence for targeting, the weapons and ammunition for killing, the diplomatic cover to protect it from Security Council action, US forces to intercept the Iranian response, the promise of direct US military backing if Israel requires it, and now appears poised to join the Israeli regime in offensive operations,” former senior UN official Craig Mokhiber wrote on LinkedIn.
“Once again, the US is a co-perpetrator in Israel’s crimes, and corrupt US politicians and media corporations have dusted off the old ‘WMDs’ ruse to push the US into war for the Israeli regime,” Mokhiber added, referring to the lies used by the Bush administration to build support for the illegal U.S. war on Iraq in 2003.
Donald Trump continues to make ambiguous, cagey, and provocative statements about whether he will order direct military force against Iran. But the U.S. is already walking in lockstep with Israel.
“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” he wrote on June 17. “Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”
In another post, Trump wrote, “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.” And in a third post, he demanded Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Trump is reportedly considering joining Israel in its strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Earlier this week, the U.S. military moved at least 30 tanker aircraft used to refuel jets and bombers from bases in the U.S. to Europe. The U.S. has also transferred F-16, F-22, and F-35 fighter jets to bases in the Middle East. And it deployed an aircraft carrier from the South China Sea toward the Middle East.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said, “Americans should know that any military involvement by the U.S. will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage to them.” Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told Al Jazeera, “Any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”
Although Israel has already done damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, “the entire operation… really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordow,” Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told Fox News. Only the U.S. military has the capacity to take out Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, built deep into a mountain 20 miles away from the city of Qom. Some analysts say bombing Fordow would require the use of a 30,000 lb. Massive Ordnance Penetrator (“bunker buster” bomb) delivered by a B-2 stealth bomber, which only the U.S. possesses. Other reports suggest that only a nuclear weapon could take out the site.
Israel’s “Preemptive” Strikes Violate the UN Charter
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Israel’s attacks on Iran as “preemptive” strikes to prevent Iran from imminently obtaining a nuclear weapon. But recent U.S. intelligence assessments concluded that Iran was not actively developing a nuclear weapon and was up to three years away from being able to obtain, target, and deliver one. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi confirmed that there is no evidence Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.
In March, Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. director of national intelligence, testified to Congress that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
But when reporters confronted Trump with Gabbard’s testimony, Trump was in denial. “I don’t care what she said,” Trump declared. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Trump wrote on TruthSocial on June 16, “Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”
Meanwhile, Israel does have a stockpile of nuclear weapons, and, unlike Iran, is not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, which governs the use of such arms. “Israel reportedly maintains at least 90 nuclear weapons, but it’s the only nuclear power in the world that refuses to confirm or deny its arsenal,” Phyllis Bennis and Khury Petersen-Smith wrote in OtherWords. “While Iran has enriched uranium, it has no nuclear weapons and — despite Israeli claims — does not have a program to create one.”
Even if there was proof that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon, the use of armed force for “preemptive” purposes violates the United Nations Charter. Article 2 states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Israel Launched a War of Aggression Against Iran
Israel’s use of military force in Iran constitutes illegal aggression.
The definition of aggression appears in UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 of 1974. Aggression is defined as “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.” This definition has also been incorporated into the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. Aggression includes “the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State.”
In addition, the prohibition against waging wars of aggression has achieved the status of a “peremptory norm” of international law, also known as jus cogens. A peremptory norm does not allow any exemptions and it cannot be modified by law, according to the Vienna Convention of the Laws of Treaties. Article 53 says, “A peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”
The only two exceptions to the charter’s prohibition on the use or threat of force are when a state acts in self-defense or when the Security Council authorizes the use of force, neither of which has occurred here. A state may use military force in individual or collective self-defense under Article 51 of the charter “if an armed attack occurs” against a state.
Countries may engage in individual or collective self-defense only after an armed attack. Iran had not mounted an armed attack against Israel or any other UN member state. Under the well-established Caroline case, there must exist “a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” There was no evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon. Even if there was, the possession of a nuclear weapon is not grounds for an armed attack; indeed, Israel has 90 nuclear weapons.
After Israel’s armed attack against Iran on June 12, Iran had the lawful right to act in self-defense under Article 51.
Trump Withdrew the U.S. From the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018
Trump set the stage for Israel’s war on Iran by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
In the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran agreed to restrict its uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities. In return, the U.S. unfroze billions of dollars in Iranian assets as relief from punishing sanctions. Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany, the European Union, the U.S., and Iran were parties to the JCPOA.
Iran has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is only intended for peaceful purposes. The IAEA certified several times that Iran was complying with its obligations under the JCPOA.
Netanyahu, who considers Iran an “existential threat” to Israel, has long been gunning for war. During Trump’s first term, Netanyahu urged him to pull the U.S. out of the JCPOA, which Trump did in 2018.
One year after the U.S. withdrawal, Iran began to pull back from its commitments under the JCPOA, which allowed a party to abandon its obligations if another party was in noncompliance. Trump intensified the sanctions that had devastated Iran’s economy, impoverished the vast majority of Iran’s population, and impeded its ability to respond to the pandemic.
Iran began enriching uranium to greater levels after the JCPOA fell apart. But as the IAEA and U.S. intelligence agencies determined, Iran was nowhere near obtaining a nuclear weapon before Israel attacked it on June 12.
Forcible Regime Change Is Illegal
Israeli officials reportedly seek U.S.-supported regime change in Iran. They hope that Iran’s disaffected population will rise up against their repressive government in response to the Israeli aggression. But although about 80 percent of Iran’s 92 million people oppose Iran’s hardline religious leadership, only a “very small number” would support foreign calls for regime change, Nasser Hadian, a U.S.-educated political scientist who has taught at the University of Tehran as well as Columbia University, told the New Yorker’s Robin Wright.
Forcible regime change violates the Iranian people’s right to self-determination.
The UN Charter prohibits the use or threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another nation. The charter enshrines the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,” that is, the right of peoples to decide their own government. And the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which both Israel and Iran have ratified, also guarantees the right to self-determination.
U.S. Participation in Israel’s Aggression Violates the “Declare War Clause” and the War Powers Resolution
Direct U.S. military involvement in Israel’s aggression against Iran would violate both the Declare War Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, as well as international law.
In Article 1, section 8, clause 11, the Constitution reserves to Congress, and only Congress, the power to declare war.
U.S. involvement in Israel’s attacks on Iran violates the War Powers Resolution, which Congress enacted in 1973 to reclaim its constitutional authority to send U.S. troops into combat after the disastrous Vietnam War. The War Powers Resolution allows the president to introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities only in three situations: where Congress has declared war; if there is an attack on U.S. territory, possessions, or armed forces; or when Congress has given authorization. None of these apply now.
Days after Israel began attacking Iran, Representatives Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California) introduced a bipartisan bill in the House, and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) introduced a joint resolution in the Senate, which say: “Congress hereby directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran.”
On June 16, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced the No War Against Iran Act to prevent the Trump administration from using federal funds for a military attack on Iran unless Congress explicitly authorizes it. The bill states that “no federal funds may be obligated or expended for any use of military force in or against Iran” unless Congress declares war or enacts “specific statutory authorization for such use of military force.”
Israel’s Aggression Against Iran May Well Backfire
Trump will reportedly decide whether to engage in direct military action against Iran in the next two weeks. “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiation that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go in the next two weeks,” Trump said in a statement read aloud by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a press briefing on June 19. But Leavitt added that Iran must agree to cease all enrichment of uranium and must not develop a nuclear weapon. Iran is not likely to agree to the complete cessation of uranium enrichment.
Meanwhile, Israeli aggression may delay but won’t prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. “The illegal attack by Israel, a nuclear-armed state, against the Iranian leadership and nuclear sites may somewhat delay but cannot prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and is likely to have the opposite effect,” the Arms Control Association stated.
Wendy Sherman, who led the U.S. delegation that negotiated the 2015 JCPOA, concurs. She told Wright from the New Yorker that Israel’s eradication of Iran’s military leaders may harm Iran’s efforts “but it is not a strategy for ending Iran’s program.”
Israel’s attacks on Iran are already proving to work against U.S. interests. Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world. In the first 24 hours after June 12, the price of U.S. crude oil rose by 7 percent. Iran, which controls the Straits of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global energy supplies pass every day, could close or mine the Straits, plunging international energy markets into turmoil.
There are more than 40,000 U.S. active-duty troops and civilians working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, based in Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Weapons and military equipment worth billions of dollars are stored in the region. Those U.S. persons and assets could be vulnerable if Trump joins Netanyahu in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
In an urgent statement condemning Israeli aggression in Iran, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) stated:
We urge states to immediately implement a two-way arms embargo on Israel; commit to implementing the International Criminal Court warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, rather than continuing to provide them with impunity; join and bring new cases at the International Court of Justice against Israel; not to provide any political or logistical support for Israeli or US acts of aggression or war crimes against Iran or any other country; and to provide all forms of assistance as requested by the Islamic Republic of Iran, Palestine, and other nations subjected to Israeli aggression and genocide.
IADL also urged nonstate parties, human rights groups, lawyers, and legal organizations around the world to use domestic and international law and courts to hold Israeli and U.S. officials and soldiers accountable for their unlawful aggression against Iran and their acts of genocide in Palestine. IADL advocated documentation of these crimes and support for and defense against state repression of antiwar movements.
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national advisory boards of Veterans For Peace and Assange Defense and she is the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.
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