{"id":3203,"date":"2025-06-25T23:56:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T23:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/?p=3203"},"modified":"2025-06-25T23:59:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T23:59:40","slug":"us-attack-on-iran-lacks-legal-justification-and-could-lead-to-more-nuclear-proliferation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/us-attack-on-iran-lacks-legal-justification-and-could-lead-to-more-nuclear-proliferation\/","title":{"rendered":"US attack on Iran lacks legal justification and could lead to more nuclear proliferation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Hastings Dunn, Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

After a stern warning from Donald Trump, Israel and Iran appear finally to be observing<\/a> a US-brokered ceasefire announced by Donald Trump overnight on June 23. But just as it remains unclear what the state of the conflict is, many other uncertainties remain when it comes to the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities<\/a>.We still don\u2019t know the extent to which Iran\u2019s stock of enriched uranium and the capability to use it have been destroyed. But leaving aside such practical considerations, the US bombing raid also constituted an attack on the prevailing international legal order.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the US actions echo the 1981 Israeli strike on Osirak<\/a> when the Israeli Air Force attacked and partially destroyed Iraq\u2019s Osirak nuclear reactor, killing ten Iraqi soldiers and one French technician.<\/p>\n

However, the US attack can be seen as more serious because it has been launched in a far more fragile and geopolitical environment. Moreover, the state violating the legal rules is the erstwhile guardian of the legal order \u2013\u2013 the USA.<\/p>\n

The attacks appear to be the logical follow through of Trump\u2019s withdrawal from the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA)<\/a> in 2018. This was the Obama-era agreement that significantly limited Iran\u2019s enrichment of nuclear material. For Trump, that negotiated deal was imperfect, as it relied on ongoing Iranian restraint. His decision to unleash US bombers was designed to end the nascent Iranian nuclear threat once and for all.<\/p>\n

But such unilateral actions rarely result in such black and white results. And this situation shows every indication of being no different. It is for this reason that negotiated solutions and agreed legal frameworks are generally regarded as better long-term solutions than military force.<\/p>\n

A significant inhibition on the use of force to remove nuclear threats has been its lack of justification under international law. When the administration of George W Bush decided to launch its invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US, UK and Australian governments that spearheaded the invasion relied on the express legal justification that Iraq was already in breach of existing UN security council resolutions<\/a> that required it to be disarmed of all weapons of mass destruction (WMD).<\/p>\n

For his part, Trump relied on the argument that Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities already posed an imminent threat to US security<\/a>. This argument had been undermined by none other than Trump\u2019s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, just weeks previously.<\/p>\n

Gabbard testified before Congress<\/a> in March that the US \u201ccontinues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003\u201d.<\/p>\n