We shouldn’t beat around the bush: Donald Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s military attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression. There is no lawful justification for it. It is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations charter allows the use of military force in only two circumstances – with authorization of the UN security council, or as self-defense from an actual or imminent armed attack. Neither was present.

In his video justification for the war, Trump spoke of Iran’s “imminent threat”, but there is no evidence to support it. He recited a litany of past attacks that he attributed to Iran, but none of them is ongoing or imminent. At best Trump sought to prevent future harm – Netanyahu used the term “pre-emptive” – but prevention is no justification for war because it would open Pandora’s box to countless armed conflicts.

To prevent future threats, governments must resort to diplomacy combined with non-military forms of pressure. Iran is already subject to comprehensive sanctions, but Trump and Netanyahu cut diplomacy short because they didn’t seem to want to accept yes for an answer. With each leader facing political challenges at home as elections approach, they appeared all too eager to Bomb Iran!

Remarkably, it isn’t even clear what the focus was during the now-suspended negotiations. Trump, never one for precision, said that Iran must agree never to have a nuclear weapon, but it has repeatedly said exactly that. To underscore the point, it seemed open to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities and to dilute what remains (after the June 2025 US bombing) of its highly enriched uranium.

Rather, the sticking point seemed to be whether Iran could enrich uranium. At various stages the US government had demanded that Iran forsake any enrichment. The Iranian negotiators resisted, noting every government’s........

© The Guardian