It is not yet clear how much damage was done to Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities by the fourteen bunker-buster bombs the United States dropped last weekend. But the damage done to international law, not only by the bombing but also by the response of America’s allies, is very clear.
The hypocrisy is stunning. Washington and its Western allies have committed to a military and intelligence operation against Russia in defense of Ukraine so massive that it has put the world on the brink of nuclear war more than once. The weight of the justification for that effort rests, in large part, on the defense of international law and especially the ban on any nation violating the sovereignty of another nation with an aggressive attack.
And yet, the U.S. committed that very crime by attacking, without approval of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a sovereign nation that had neither attacked nor threatened it.
America’s action and the response to it by its allies exposes the charade of international law. In the U.S.-led rules-based order, there is no consistently applied international law; Washington and its allies selectively apply the rules when they suit them and exempt themselves from the rules when they do not.
That reality is laid bare not only by America’s illegal bombing of Iran but by Europe, NATO, and Ukraine’s justification of that attack while simultaneously condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
British prime minister Keir Starmer placed the responsibility on Iran and praised the U.S. “Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the U.S. has taken action to alleviate that threat,” Starmer said.
France “expressed its firm opposition to Iran gaining access to nuclear weapons” and “urge[d] the parties to exercise restraint.”
Italy called for de-escalation while saying Iran’s nuclear facilities “represented a danger for the entire area.”
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, could only muster a milquetoast pronouncement: “I urge all sides to step back, return to the negotiating table and prevent further escalation.” EU president Ursula von der Leyen said, “Iran must never acquire the bomb…. Now is the moment for Iran to engage in a credible diplomatic solution.”
Germany, France and Britain issued a joint statement, insisting “that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” It implied that America’s “targeted military strikes against nuclear facilities in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan” were consistent with their nations’ shared aim “to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” They then called on Iran “to engage in negotiations” and “urge[d] Iran not to take any further action that could destabilize the region.”
Molly O’Neal, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, suggested to me that the European response is best represented by Germany, whose chancellor, Friedrich Merz, recently said the U.S. was doing “our dirty work” by attacking Iran.
“This offensive remark,” O’Neal said, “exposed vividly that norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity, applied rigorously in Europe, are ignored when the U.S. applies force in violation of these norms.”
Australia announced, “We support action to prevent Iran getting a nuclear weapon and that is what this is.” Czechia similarly endorsed the attack. “The U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is an understandable attempt to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons,” the prime minister wrote on X.
Al Jazeera’s James Bays pointed out to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that NATO has “been criticizing Russia for breaching the rules-based international order by invading Ukraine.” Bays asked, “Doesn’t all of that seem very hypocritical given the U.S.’s recent actions which are clearly dubious under international law?” Rutte stammered through a response. “Well, I don’t agree with that assessment at all…. I do not at all—not one syllable of your assessment—sorry—on what you just said…. I think you have this completely wrong.”
NATO’s reaction to the U.S. bombing had already been revealed when President Donald Trump published Rutte’s message to him on Truth Social. “Mr. President, dear Donald,” Rutte wrote, “Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do. It makes us all safer.”
But, perhaps, the greatest example of self-defeating hypocrisy goes to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has, understandably, insisted on enforcing the international law against unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations without UNSC approval.
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Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying, “Ukraine is convinced that Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped so that it never again poses a threat to the countries of the Middle East or any other state.” Zelensky reiterated that Iran “must absolutely not” be allowed to have “nuclear weapons,” and he praised “the resolve of President Trump.” There is also a hypocrisy to Zelensky’s insistence that “there must be no proliferation of nuclear weapons in the modern world,” since he himself has threatened to reacquire nuclear weapons in Ukraine, a remark that went uncriticized by the U.S. or NATO in another selective application of international law.
The sincerity of America’s commitment to an impartial international law has long been questioned in much of the world, and especially in the Global South. That suspicion has undoubtedly been hardened by America’s recent unprovoked bombing of Iran in the absence of an imminent threat to the United States or of UNSC approval.
Though the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program remains to be seen, one cost of that achievement is the great, and possibly irreparable, damage done to international law and America’s claim to be its greatest defender.
