When Is an Illegal War Morally Right? The US-Israeli Attack on Iran and the Collapse of the Rules-Based Order
In the complex and often contradictory realm of international relations, the relationship between law and morality is rarely straightforward. Actions that are manifestly illegal can, in extraordinary circumstances, be morally defensible. The NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, which lacked explicit UN Security Council authorization, is the most frequently cited example: a war fought to prevent ethnic cleansing, widely seen as legitimate despite its technical illegality. Such cases, however, are few and far between. The question now thrust upon the world is whether the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, launched with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a sustained campaign of airstrikes, can claim a similar moral exception. As Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and a distinguished voice on international affairs, argues in a compelling analysis, the answer is a resounding no. This war fails every test of moral legitimacy, and in its execution, it is accelerating the collapse of whatever remains of the rules-based international order.
First, the question of legality should be beyond dispute. The initiation of this war by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flagrantly violates international law. The core principle of the UN Charter is the prohibition of the use of force against another state, with only two narrow exceptions: self-defense against an imminent armed attack, or action authorized by the Security Council. Neither condition is met here. Iran did not pose a threat to the US or Israel—from nuclear weapons, conventional missiles, or state-sponsored terrorism—of an imminence or on a scale that could possibly justify preemptive military action. The US and Israel acted not because of Iran’s strength, but because of its relative weakness. They saw an opportunity, not a threat. This is a war of choice, not of necessity.
The attack is the latest and most dramatic in a series of actions by the world’s most powerful countries that hold international law in contempt. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s militarization of the South China Sea, and America’s earlier seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro are all part of a disturbing pattern. The “rules-based order,” already frayed, is now being actively dismantled by its own architects. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney compellingly argued in his Davos speech in January, this collapse demands concerted pushback from capable middle powers. But for now, the strong are doing what they can, and the weak are suffering what they must.
Yet, for all the legal clarity, a moral question lingers. Can one still argue that, whatever the law, the monstrous crimes of Iran’s theocratic leadership justify its military decapitation? The charge sheet against the regime is long and ugly. It has suppressed its own people with shocking brutality, most recently in the slaughter of tens of thousands of peacefully protesting citizens earlier this year—an atrocity comparable in intensity to those committed in Rwanda and the Balkans in the 1990s. It has sponsored terror and destabilized its neighbors for decades. The images of joyful celebrations in Iranian streets and among diaspora communities following the news of Khamenei’s death tell a compelling story. For a sizable mass, perhaps even a majority, of Iran’s citizens, this war is not feared; it is welcomed. They see the removal of their oppressor as a liberation.
This brings us back to the Kosovo precedent. In 1999, NATO went to war without UN approval to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians. Most of the world saw that campaign as morally, if not legally, defensible. It was motivated by a genuine concern for civilian protection. It was proportional in its execution and, by any reasonable measure, did more good than harm. If the Iran war is to be defended on similar moral grounds, it must satisfy the same conditions. On the evidence so far, that is a very hard ask.
The first condition is motivation. Only the most gullible observers could believe that the actions of Trump and Netanyahu were motivated by a passion for human rights and democracy. Netanyahu has spent his entire political career obsessed with eliminating Iran as a security threat to Israel, whether that threat was real, exaggerated, or imagined. His track record on Palestinian rights—the occupation, the settlements, the repeated military campaigns in Gaza—makes it impossible to believe that his stated desire “to create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to cast off the yoke of tyranny” is based on principle rather than cold realpolitik. He is not interested in freedom for Iranians; he is interested in safety for Israelis, as he defines it.
Trump’s motivations are even more opaque and, frankly, less savory. He could be motivated by any number of impulses: a desire to bask in the projection of US military power, a need to command the global limelight, a cynical attempt to distract from the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal and other domestic troubles, or the promise of economic returns for his allies in the defense industry. It could be all of the above. The one motivation that seems least likely is a genuine, selfless concern for the welfare of the Iranian people. Wrong motivations do not necessarily preclude right outcomes, but they cast a long, dark shadow over the entire enterprise.
The second, and far more consequential, condition is outcome. The US and Israel must demonstrate that their aggression will ultimately do more good than harm. This will be exceptionally difficult. Neither power has any discernible strategy for ending the war with clear net gains in regional and global security, let alone in the internal human rights and democracy of Iran. History is littered with the wreckage of such well-intentioned (and not-so-well-intentioned) interventions. Achieving favorable regime change through airpower alone is a fantasy, as NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 catastrophically demonstrated. That country remains a failed state, a source of instability and human trafficking. Boosts on the ground have done little better, as the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq prove. Decapitating a regime may produce a successor more amenable to external actors, but just as authoritarian—as in Venezuela today, where a US-backed “interim president” failed to dislodge the incumbent, and the country descended deeper into crisis.
The situation on the ground in Iran is precarious. There is, by all accounts, huge discontent among the population. But effective organizational leadership has yet to emerge. The spontaneous protests of the past, however courageous, were brutally suppressed. Unless Iranian military leaders defect en masse, or cracks start appearing in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other parts of the country’s enormous and brutal security apparatus, those who take to the streets now could face consequences even more dire than before. “Fighting to the last drop of the Iranian people’s blood” is hardly a morally attractive option, but it seems, for now, to be the only one on offer from the US. It is the Iranian people who will pay the price for this war, not the leaders who started it.
There is one final hurdle to accepting this war as illegal but legitimate. What made the Kosovo argument compelling was that NATO did not treat the law they were violating as irrelevant. They acknowledged the Charter, claimed exceptional circumstances, and sought (however belatedly) to justify their actions. The threat to international law lies not in its occasional breach—that happens in all legal systems, sometimes for the best of reasons—but in its contemptuous dismissal. And that is exactly how both Trump and Netanyahu have treated it throughout their time in office. As Trump told the New York Times in January, “I don’t need international law,” claiming that the only constraint on his power is “my own morality, my own mind.” This is not the language of a statesman making a difficult exception; it is the language of a warlord.
This war of choice has not met the conditions to be considered morally legitimate. The motivations are suspect, the strategy is absent, and the likely outcomes are catastrophic. It will not bring freedom to Iran; it will bring more bloodshed. It will not stabilize the region; it will set it ablaze. It will not strengthen the rules-based order; it will deliver its death blow. The joyful celebrations of a liberated people are a powerful image, but they are not a mandate for war. They are a cry for help, and the US and Israel, with their missiles and their drones, are not offering help. They are offering destruction, dressed in the borrowed robes of liberation.
Questions and Answers
Q1: On what grounds does the author argue that the US-Israeli war on Iran is flagrantly illegal?
A1: The author argues the war violates the UN Charter, which only allows the use of force in self-defense against an imminent threat or with Security Council authorization. Iran posed no imminent threat of a scale that would justify preemptive action. The attack was a “war of choice,” not one of necessity, launched because of Iran’s relative weakness, not its strength.
Q2: What is the Kosovo precedent, and why is it used as a comparison?
A2: The 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo is used as the classic example of a war that was technically illegal (lacking UN approval) but widely seen as morally legitimate because it was fought to prevent ethnic cleansing. The author uses it to establish a framework: for a war to be considered illegal but legitimate, it must have pure humanitarian motivations, be proportional, and ultimately do more good than harm.
Q3: Why does the author reject the idea that the US and Israel were motivated by a concern for human rights and democracy in Iran?
A3: The author points to the track records of both leaders. Netanyahu’s history of oppressing Palestinians and prioritizing Israeli security over all else makes his stated concern for Iranian rights implausible. Trump’s motivations are seen as a mix of ego, distraction from domestic scandals (like Epstein), and economic interests, with “common decency” being the least likely driver.
Q4: What are the historical precedents cited to argue that “decapitating a regime” through airpower rarely leads to a good outcome?
A4: The author cites several disastrous interventions:
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Libya (2011): NATO’s air campaign led to regime change but left the country a failed state.
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Afghanistan and Iraq: Decades of intervention and “boots on the ground” failed to create stable, democratic societies.
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Venezuela: US-backed attempts at regime change have not succeeded, and the country remains authoritarian.
These precedents suggest that even if the current regime falls, the outcome for Iranians is highly uncertain and likely dangerous.
Q5: What is the final, and perhaps most damning, argument against accepting this war as legitimate?
A5: The author argues that for a breach of international law to be morally defensible, those breaching it must show respect for the law they are breaking, treating it as an exception. Trump, however, has explicitly stated he does not “need international law,” treating it with “contemptuous dismissal.” This contempt for the very framework of global order, the author argues, is what makes this war not just illegal, but illegitimate.
