The Iranian war is exposing some stark truths, and corresponding risks and dangers.
BEWARE EXTREME LAW WORSHIPPERS
It is fairly evident in modern times that religious zealots and extremists bring potential dangers and bad consequences. Examples are Islamic Jihadists, extreme Zionists, extreme communists and extreme right-wing followers. They all ignore the law and foster violence of some kind. But extreme blind faith in the law must not end up protecting those who disrespect it.
The USA, Israel, the UK and other nations are in the spotlight over the laws applicable to war, and when engaging in war is justified.
Debate now rages over whether the U.S. and Israel attacks on Iran, the Iran war, is legal or illegal. Is the law in this case of great importance as it is clear that lawyers and other advocates on each side of the debate can make arguments one way or another. International law is cited as if divine? But it is important to remember that laws, domestic or international, are man-made inventions to meet circumstances, normally problematic, at a point in time. Of course, without laws chaos reigns, but laws and lawmakers are not infallible, and morality and sense have an important place. Sometimes too it may be morally correct to resist a law, ignore it, disobey it and fight it, as after all laws can produce bad results as well as good.
The United Nations charter is the source normally cited to analyse legality of war. In broad terms, it only permits an attack on another nation if it is an act of self-defence, or if the Security Council of the UN permits it. This Charter goes back to the end of the Second World war, and the UN was a great new idea. It was a very different world then. The UN established a Security Council, essentially those States which had nuclear weapons, such as the USA, Russia or the USSR as it was then, UK, France and also China. But this Council is moribund if one of its members is involved in, or one of a member’s allies is involved in, a war situation: every member has a power of veto. The UN itself divides into various political groups and so is of dubious honesty and efficacy.
The Iran war it may be said was started by Israel and the USA and is not self-defence. It seems that a number of Ministers in the UK Government, such as Miliband and Reeves, take this view and are of the belief that the UK can never do anything that is not 100% iron clad legal under the UN international law. Starmer and the Attorney General, Hermer, treat law as sacrosanct. And so, their narrative is not to involve the UK as an aggressor in any way or as a helper of an aggressor unless they can cast the action as self-defence. All other considerations are outweighed by this obsession. The same fear of law resulted in the surrender of Chagos.
The UK Government, due to this extremism, may be seriously endangering and letting down the nation. The fact is that Iran’s approach since the Islamic extremists took power over 40 years ago has been aggressive and dangerous, ignoring legal and moral norms. Iran is sworn to destroy Israel and Jews, and it sponsors at least Hamas and Hezbollah to attack and seek to destroy Israel: that surely alone justifies Israel attacking Iran. Iran has for years been working on its own nuclear weapon capability, and Western Countries such as the USA, Europe and the UK have been seeking to negotiate to stop this. Negotiations have failed. Arguably, if Iran were to have nuclear weapons, it could then, just as Putin in Europe, hold the region and others to ransom. Combine that with the Iran leaders’ genocidal philosophy, is not attacking Iran a pre-emptive self-defence?
Has not Iran for years been engaging in war against the West: Seizing the U.S. Embassy in Tehran; in the Iraq war Iranians killed British and Americans; in the UK, MI5 reported that in 2024 over 20 Iranian backed projects to kill dissident Iranians, and Jews and others in the UK were tracked by UK authorities. In addition, Iran, it is commonly said, regularly wages cyber war in Europe and the USA. So, it can be argued strongly that Iran had already started the war.
The Iranian regime is reported to have killed at least 20,000 protesters in January this year (nobody really knows the true number who were murdered and tortured) and for many years it seems that regime has been torturing and murdering its own citizens: few argue that the leaders of Iran are not diabolical and murderous. Against that reality, cannot seeking at least to dismantle Iran’s aggressive weaponry such as ballistic missiles and drones etc, and preventing it having nuclear weapons, through aerial bombardment be justified? It is noteworthy that Iran’s strategic response to the attacks is to randomly attack 13 countries in the Middle East and create death and mayhem in countries which are not participating in the attacks on Iran.
Is there not a good argument that, because Iran’s regime openly ignores and breaks recognised international law, sponsors armed conflicts, also aids Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and disregards human rights completely, killing at will, it cannot then invoke the UN laws on war to protect itself. That hypocrisy is so spelled out by Putin who complains that the USA and Israel are lawbreakers as he murders, tortures, rapes and kidnaps Ukrainians, and sends his own people to die for his immoral war, recklessly and without compassion.
Should not the UK and Europe who depend on the USA for defence, when the USA is a close ally, stand by that relationship in this case? The arguments about legality are getting excessive airings and being given undue weight, while relationships with allies remain strategically essential.
OTHER TRUTHS
This Iran war has revealed the fragility of Dubai and the rest of the UAE. They are not the safe paradise that they seem. The Middle East countries being attacked by Iran should surely stand and defend themselves. The UK’s faltering response to this massive event has been woeful, and the final humiliation is its inability to field sufficient defensive armoury against Iranian air assault: no naval vessel can get to British bases in Cypress to defend them for 3 weeks from the start of the war. The lie of Starmer and cronies that they are bolstering the UK military is truly revealed. The UK’s dogmatic energy policy, to not use its own oil and gas but import instead largely from the Middle East such as Qatar and the UAE, is exposed as flawed by the drying up of supply due to Iranian bombing and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz to energy traffic especially. That the UK government refuses to exploit the country’s own oil and gas resources is beyond belief.
A further evident truth is that warfare has changed dramatically. Ukraine has demonstrated that drone warfare is critical and ability to intercept enemy drones a core necessity. It is remarkable that the USA, and less remarkably Europe, has not in the last 24 months built strong defences against drones: so much so that the mighty USA is asking Ukraine for help to address the problem of Iranian power in drone warfare!
Last, there is a stark truth about the irresponsibility of reporting media. Over dramatization of the tragedy of war is rife. And worst the creation of false perspectives arises from public broadcasting: interviews with people with axes to grind. But also painting pictures of disaster when in fact there is none: take the British base at Akrotiri, Cyprus. One would imagine Cyprus had been under vicious attack, but in reality the only damage was a hole in a hangar caused by a single drone which evaded UK defences: oh dear.
THE STARKEST AND DEEPEST OF PROBLEMS
The USA and Israel can undoubtedly smash most of Iranian military capacity. However, there is so plainly no American strategy for the next steps. Trump demands a say in the Iranian leadership identity: hardly realistic? Is internal Iranian chaos the outcome when bombs go quiet? Is it civil war? The Trump objectives change daily. He could just walk away when he has had enough and declare himself a winner whatever the reality. The long-term future of Iran will not be determined from Washington, but surely by the result of factional rivalry in Iran itself. Maybe that is the only way if the Iranian people are ever to be free of the barbaric cruelty of its current governance. But from a regional perspective it must surely be better if Iran does not have the lethal force to threaten its neighbours ever again.
It is surely clear too that the final outcome is not to be resolved by argument in the courts or media about who is in breach of what international law. Rather we must beware a worship of law that in effect protects those who least observe it.
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