With this latest aggression, the collapse of law and reason

The fact that Iran is a brutal and inhumane theocracy does nothing to lessen the severity of these crimes. We are now witnessing the absolute collapse of international law.

The US and Israeli aggression against Iran is yet another blow dealt to international law.

It is a blatant violation of the fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter, which in Article 2 prohibits the use of force against a sovereign state, as well as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, whose Article 5 classifies a war of aggression as a “crime” under its jurisdiction.

The US bombardments have already claimed countless civilian casualties. They struck a girls' school, resulting in the deaths of over 80 young girls and injuring another 80 students.

The fact that Iran is a brutal and inhumane theocracy does nothing to lessen the severity of these crimes. We are now witnessing the absolute collapse of international law.

This undeclared war served as the official proclamation by the world's greatest military power that the law of the strongest is the new fundamental norm in international relations.

After all, this rejection of any limits had already been flaunted by President Donald Trump with the bombing of Iran in June 2025, followed by the bombing of ISIS factions in Nigeria and the January 3 aggression against Venezuela. It was also openly outlined in the new National Security Strategy of November 2025, which claimed a sort of absolute sovereignty for the United States, rooted in the unconditional primacy of its own interests even at the expense of anyone else's.

As a consequence, in the wake of this international coup d'état, a situation of substantial and terrifying anarchy has emerged. The greatest military power on the planet is led by an individual afflicted with narcissism and megalomania who has declared he recognizes no limits other than those he sets for himself – demonstrating that, like all despots, he does not know the meaning of the word “law.”

The lack of pushback against this aggression will henceforth legitimize and normalize any other violation, past or future: yesterday it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tomorrow it will be the Chinese invasion of Taiwan and then still others, such as a U.S. attack on Cuba, which has already been openly threatened. This will continue until wars of aggression are fully normalized and globalized. International law is thus ceasing to exist.

Furthermore, the law of the strongest is also practiced and flaunted by other criminal autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. It is a savage law that – in a world where hard power consists of 12,000 nuclear warheads (just 50 of which are enough to annihilate humanity) held by nine separate powers almost entirely driven by an enemy-centric logic – leads up to the eventual self-destruction of the human race.

A painful aspect of this war is the silence or, worse, the active support of the European Union, and Italy in particular, with the sole exception of Spain. For four years, Europe has railed daily against Putin, repeating that on one side there is an aggressor and on the other a victim. Yet in the U.S. and Israel’s aggression against Iran – just as in the June 2025 bombings and the January 3 attack on Venezuela – there is also an aggressor (or rather, two aggressors) on one side and a victim on the other. The silence and acquiescence of the EU and Italy nullify any credibility they might have had and guarantee their irrelevance – all the more humiliating because it stems directly from their subservience to the United States.

In short, humanity has regressed to a state of nature – a nuclear one, at that – dominated by a handful of despots who are all armed, violent, fanatical and ruthless. This explains the global acceleration of the race for ever larger and more lethal weapons stockpiles, fueled by the illusion that security depends on armaments rather than on mutual respect for international treaties and diplomatic work. While the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the rich continue to grow in both developing and advanced nations, the only public expenditure on the rise is military spending. This primarily benefits U.S. arms manufacturers, who have tripled their profits thanks to the ongoing wars.

Furthermore, what is currently unfolding is proof not only of the failure of international law, but also of the collapse of reason, both legal and political.

The failure of the UN stems from its sheer impotence. Its founding charter proclaims the ultimate goal of peace – yet it introduced absolutely no guarantees to back up this edifying proclamation. Instead, it contradicted itself by recognizing the absolute sovereignty of individual states, which includes the power to wage war as an inevitable feature.

The collapse of reason, in turn, is driven by the insane and criminal cult of weapons. This cult dismisses as implausible the only rational and realistic guarantee of both peace and security: the outright ban and severe punishment for the production, trade and possession of weapons, encompassing all firearms, not just nuclear arsenals – and treating these crimes as the highest crimes against humanity. This would require the disbanding of national armies and handing the monopoly on the use of force over to the UN and local police forces. The very survival of humanity is at stake.

© Il Manifesto Global