Despite the blatant obfuscation by the Australian government and the opposition, the US-Israel war on Iran is illegal.
To have legal grounds for the use of force, a country must be acting in self-defence in response to an attack or imminent attack, or be acting with the express approval of the UN security council.
The conflicting and garbled claims from the US and Israel that there was an urgent need now to stop the threat of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs is fraudulent. US president, Donald Trump, claimed just last year that Iran’s nuclear program was “completely and totally obliterated” in the 12-day war.
And in any case, there’s no evidence that Iran is on the cusp of possessing a nuclear weapon, nor that it has the technology to deliver it. In other words, any attempt to try to lean on the notion of anticipatory retaliation in this case is simply fanciful.
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What’s more, not only has this attack not been sanctioned by the UN, the US and Israel didn’t even try to gain international support for the current military campaign.
People might remember that I resigned from the intelligence services over the fraudulent case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I see some alarming parallels with this case.
Indeed in both instances the threat was exaggerated to justify the war. But at least in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion the US took the matter to the UN and attempted to make their case.
The other alarming parallel, which shouldn’t be overlooked, is the political one. And that’s that both wars were launched by unpopular incumbent US administrations close to midterm elections. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book to distract a population and try to encourage them to rally around the flag.
Now don’t get me wrong. There’s no denying that the dismantling of the Iranian regime is a good thing. They are an odious theocracy that has terrorised and murdered their own people, and spread havoc as far afield as Australia. I would be among the first to welcome the end of the regime and its replacement with an open democracy.
But the rule of law matters, and it must be applied consistently. It’s simply not acceptable to say in this or any case that “the end justifies the means”, or that international law only applies to our adversaries and competitors – not to our friends. Nor is it acceptable to throw our arms up in the air and resign ourselves to “might makes right”.
Another of the lessons of the Iraq war and similar regime change operations is that the result will almost inevitably be widespread suffering of innocent civilian