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4 hours ago
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Like the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Israel’s war on Iran is neither legal nor just. It is a war of choice, not of necessity – and should the US or its European allies, particularly Britain, join in, they risk being dragged into another disastrous and unlawful conflict in the Middle East.
A US military intervention would be in direct contravention of international law. Already, the US, once the architect and guardian of the international order, is now among its chief violators. Instead of pressuring Benjamin Netanyahu to end his siege and destruction of Gaza, Donald Trump has fully sided with Netanyahu and called Israel’s attacks on Iran “excellent”. He has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”. Trump is considering military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Doing so is explicitly prohibited under article 56 of the additional protocol to the Geneva conventions because of the danger of nuclear contamination.
Britain, meanwhile, must tread carefully. The attorney general has reportedly warned that any UK military involvement beyond defensive support would be illegal. Richard Hermer, the government’s top legal adviser, is said to have raised internal concerns about the legality of joining a bombing campaign.
The foundation of Israel’s justification for launching pre-emptive strikes and of Washington’s quiet complicity is alarming. The core claim is that Iran was rapidly taking steps to “weaponise its uranium”, with Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, repeatedly warning that Tehran was approaching a point of no return in developing a nuclear bomb.
But Netanyahu’s narrative flatly contradicts the US intelligence assessment, which found that not only is Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it remains at least three years away from having the capability to do so. The CIA disputes the Israeli claim that Iran is close to crossing a nuclear threshold.
Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, had not authorised a nuclear programme, one that was in fact suspended in 2003. Even if Iran was making a bomb, international law doesn’t give Israel and the US the right to bomb Iran. The UN charter is clear on the use of force in international relations.
Yet, when pressed about this contradiction, Trump dismissed the intelligence outright. “I don’t care what she said,” he told reporters. “I think they were very close to having it.” Netanyahu and Trump’s narrative also stands in direct opposition to findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose director general, Rafael Grossi, confirmed on 17 June that there was “no proof” Iran was systematically developing nuclear weapons.
Set against this backdrop, US military intervention would rupture the rules-based international order further and make future conflicts more unpredictable and dangerous. Other powerful states could launch offensive wars under the pretext of pre-empting real or imagined threats to their national security. Today, it’s Israel and the US. Tomorrow, China could use the same rationale to justify attacking Taiwan.
The echoes of the Iraq war should also raise alarm bells. Then, as now, war was sold on manufactured intelligence. Netanyahu was a vocal supporter of the neoconservative movement that led the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and justified it with claims about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism. George W Bush sold that war with the now-infamous line about Hussein’s “massive stockpile” of biological weapons, despite the CIA stating it had “no specific information” on quantities or types. Bush went further, claiming: “We do not know whether or not [Iraq] has a nuclear weapon,” contradicting his own intelligence. He knew, and he lied.
Trump, for his part, publicly criticised that very deception, saying Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was “the worst decision any president has made in the history of this country [the US]”, adding: “There were no weapons of mass destruction, and they knew there were none.” Yet Trump today appears to borrow a page from Bush’s playbook.
Although there is no plan for a US ground invasion of Iran, any attack on Tehran risks spiralling into a full-blown regional war. Iran has repeatedly threatened to retaliate against US bases in Iraq, Bahrain and the wider Gulf. A mission creep could easily escalate, triggering a cycle of strikes and counterstrikes.
For example, Iran could mine the strait of Hormuz, a critical choke point for global energy flows. The effects could reverberate globally, hitting energy markets and causing an inflationary cycle, weakening confidence in the US dollar, and potentially plunging the US economy into stagflation.
Even the Houthis, with far fewer military capabilities than Iran, have managed to severely inflict damage and disrupt shipping in the Red Sea. If the US joins Israel’s war, Iran could cripple global trade routes and send oil prices soaring.
If the US joins Israel’s war on Iran, it could backfire spectacularly, and potentially strengthen the regime rather than weakening it. One likely outcome is that the clerics will dash forward towards making a nuclear bomb, pointing to Israel’s attack and attempt at regime change as justification. Meanwhile, in the UK, Keir Starmer would do well to remember the bitter legacy of Tony Blair, who led Britain into Iraq alongside the US.
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Fawaz Gerges is professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. His most recent book is The Great Betrayal: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East
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