International Law and the Security Dilemma
The Duty to Act and the Preservation of the International Legal Order
The aftermath of the 2024 Bachoura strike, Beirout, Lebanon, October 13, 2024. Photographer: Hamed Malekpour, Tasnim News Agency
I suggest that, for the sake of method, my readers temporarily suspend their judgment, in other words, practice an ἐποχή, as the ancient Greek philosophers used to say, and put aside for a moment their initial impulse or visceral reaction. It is understandable that this may seem complicated: the strikes by Israel, followed by the United States, on Iran immediately provoked passionate reactions, either accusing the Jewish state of recklessness or, above all, of rushing headlong into action, Washington of warmongering adventurism when it claimed to be disengaging from all wars, or to rejoice at Tehran’s weakening after years of wait-and-see policy in the face of the multiple dangers posed by the regime and its crimes both abroad and at home. In reality, it would not be entirely illogical to make such judgments simultaneously. To paraphrase a famous comic book character, there can be a rainbow in our thoughts at the same time as in our hearts.
Sticking to international law alone, the strikes on Iran are illegal under international law pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter. Preemptive strikes have no legal basis—this was already the case in the second Iraq war, which was different in nature from the first, which was a legal response to the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Many of us noted that, in a shameful and strategically inept contrast, the Allies did not respond in the same way to Russia by directly targeting its launchers and aircraft, which for more than 11 years, and massively for more than three, have been attacking Ukraine, causing more than 100,000 civilian casualties. This would have been not only legal under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, but also, in my view, politically necessary for both humanitarian and security reasons.
As a result, we see certain minds as twisted as they are unworthy comparing Israel, and since June 22, 2025, the United States to Russia and Iran to Ukraine! It is hardly necessary to point out, as it comes as no surprise, that those who invoke international law by means of this abject comparison to condemn Jerusalem and Washington have never condemned Moscow’s strikes, let alone called for a strong response and demanded that no one accept any compromise on Ukraine's territorial integrity, the trial and conviction of Russian criminals, and the return of deported Ukrainian children. Above all, the comparison is indecent for factual reasons.
Ukraine has never attacked any of its neighbors and obviously had no intention of doing so. It was not a threat to peace or to any other people. When it was attacked, it was a peaceful democracy, neutral at that, which had renounced its nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum. It remains so, and if today it is justified in seeking membership of NATO, which it had given up hope of joining after the disastrous Franco-German veto at the Bucharest summit in April 2008, as well as membership of the European Union, it is precisely because it was attacked and because, today, the responsible Allies clearly recognize that it would be a considerable asset to the security of the entire Alliance.
The same cannot be said, of course, of Iran, a power responsible for multiple terrorist attacks, including the one on the Drakkar on October 23, 1983, which claimed the lives of 58 French paratroopers, 241 US marines and six Lebanese civilians, a player in a policy of systematic destabilization of the entire region, which it has made a political objective, and a state perpetrator of massive crimes against humanity, particularly in Syria during the Assad regime, which it supported alongside Moscow. There is still controversy over how quickly Tehran could develop an atomic bomb or be in a position to launch a so-called “dirty” nuclear attack, but most intelligence services seem to agree that Iran was getting closer to that moment. In short, Iran is a major danger. Nor can anyone forget its complicity in Russia’s terrorist acts through the delivery of Shahed drones to the latter, which are killing Ukrainian civilians on a daily basis. Of course, this does not in itself constitute a legal reason to attack Iran, but this is precisely where we enter into the security dilemma.