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Adam Zivo: Donald Trump's war on Iran is righteously just

There was no better time to strike, the Islamic regime has zero legitimacy

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TEL AVIV — The American-Israeli war against Iran’s Islamic Regime is both righteous and strategically sound. Ignore the critics who clutch their pearls and selectively bray about international law.

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Iranians have struggled for decades to rid themselves of their Islamist dictatorship. Yet, the regime has, from its inception, used nauseating violence to crush dissent. Shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, thousands of political dissidents were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Subsequent mass protests — notably in 2019 and 2022 — were silenced by spilling rivers of blood.

Adam Zivo: Donald Trump's war on Iran is righteously just Back to video

When millions of pro-democracy Iranians bravely took to the streets, barehanded, to demand revolution earlier this year, they were butchered. Death estimates vary, but it seems likely that around 30,000 lives were lost — or the equivalent of ten Tiananmen Square massacres. Women and children were not spared. Survivors were hunted at the hospitals.

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The Iranian diaspora wept and demonstrated across the globe with an unequivocal demand: immediate military intervention to topple the regime. Hundreds of thousands of voices united behind this point, never wavering. I witnessed this while reporting on these demonstrations in Toronto. “Trump act now! Trump act now!” they called, with rage and desperation.

When bombs finally fell on Saturday, Iranians rejoiced. Massive crowds gathered throughout the West — including in Canada — to jubilantly thank the United States and Israel for acting. Although the mood inside Iran is harder to gauge, partially due to an ongoing internet blackout, every Iranian I know has said that their relatives in the country are ecstatic. Their testimony is consistent with what more or less every Iranian online personality is reporting, and with the stream of celebratory videos leaking out of the country.

From a moral perspective, bombing the Islamic Republic of Iran is simply the correct choice. It is evidently what most Iranians want. They see this as a precious opportunity for liberation that is worth the gambles of war, because what could be worse than the slaughter they just endured?

“But this violates international law!” whine some critics. Yes, it does. So what?

Modern international law, which emerged following the Second World War, has always been profoundly flawed. Under the UN charter, countries may only wage war in self-defence, and only when there is an imminent threat, unless otherwise authorized by the UN Security Council.

This means that autocratic regimes can freely oppress their own citizens, so long as they refrain from attacking other states and convince a member of the Security Council — usually Russia or China — to veto foreign intervention. Further, this framework is poorly designed for proxy warfare, since the right to self-defence permits retaliation against proxy forces but generally not their puppeteers.

Under the UN Charter, none of Iran’s brutalities and aggression — including the funding and coordination of Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis — can trigger a “legal” war. With China and Russia’s UN support, there is simply no recourse through the international system. Like many global autocracies, Iran has been immunized from accountability despite routinely breaking international law itself.

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This is why international law is not taken seriously with respect to global conflict. It is broken and, for the most part, only shields tyrants from the consequences of their actions. Even when invoked, it offers no real protection or justice: when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, for example, it was hard power, not highfalutin lawyers in New York and Geneva, that halted their advance.

Everyone understands that morality and legality are not synonymous — especially in this domain — so it is strange to see critics deploy such narrow legalism here. Their avoidance of larger ethical questions seems obtuse, dishonest even.

Worse yet, many of them were silent when the the Islamic regime murdered protesters, and have declined to criticize the regime’s illegal bombing of several Arab Gulf states over the past few days. The hypocrisy is revealing: do these “international law” fetishists really think we cannot see through them?

“Washington and Jerusalem have ulterior motives! They are in this for themselves!” shout some critics. And to this I say, again: so what?

Countries are not charities, and war is expensive and seldom waged purely out of benevolence. Yet, there are instances when self-interest and righteousness intersect — because they are not mutually exclusive — and this is generally a wonderful thing.

This is not a controversial or profound point to make. Everyone understands, for example, that European support for Ukraine is about self-preservation, and that policymakers are not spending astronomical sums on Kyiv’s defence out of saintliness. Yet, when it comes to Washington, some people treat the pursuit of American self-interest as automatically disqualifying, on both a moral and political level, while never applying this line of thinking elsewhere.

It is almost as if their underlying motivation is vulgar anti-Americanism. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what this is about.

The most understandable objection to attacking the Islamic regime is that it may fail to induce meaningful change, or otherwise prove destabilizing.

Yet, all wars involve risk and there will be no better time to strike. The regime is struggling with a protracted economic crisis, including hyperinflation, and is struggling to contain mass protests. Its slaughter of pro-democracy protesters earlier this year has cratered what little legitimacy it had remaining and left a volcanic reservoir of discontent.

Thank god some western leaders had the courage, and moral confidence, to exploit this opportunity.

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