Case Explained: Partners in Crime: The US and Israel’s War Against Iran and the UN Charter – Legal Perspective

The wars being waged across the globe signal a collective attack on the post-WWII legal order. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to pose a serious threat to European and international peace and security, the United States and Israel’s attacks on Iran and its retaliation against them and their regional allies have shattered prospects of peace in the Middle East and taken us to the brink of a potential third world war and, scarier still, a possible nuclear disaster.

Why it matters

It is hard to watch the UN Charter, accepted by 193 member states, being destroyed with such intent and impunity by powerful but unprincipled leaders, whether it is Russian President Vladimir Putin, American President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is even harder to see that the destruction is openly aided and abetted by complicit states. These include China and Iran in their material support, including fuel and drones, for Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as various European and Arab states in their material support, including use of their territory and airspace, for the US and Israeli war on Iran.

The world is watching as we are on the brink of a possible third world war and multiple genocides, including in Myanmar, Sudan and Palestine. Having learned the terrible lessons of WWII and the Holocaust, the UN was founded precisely to avoid the scourge of such wars and genocides. The international community said “never again,” but here we are again and again.

The UN Charter was designed precisely for these dangerous moments — to prevent and respond to aggression and genocide and to seek the peaceful settlement of disputes. Continuation or escalation may bring China and/or Russia into the fray in both Ukraine and in the Middle East, which not only risks a third world war but a possible nuclear confrontation.

If Israel or the US feel that they are losing their war against Iran, they may resort to their own arsenals of nuclear weapons to achieve what will likely be a Pyrrhic victory. Nuclear catastrophe can still unfold because of US or Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities or Iran’s attacks on Israel’s nuclear facilities, both of which can lead to serious radiation leaks, posing significant risks to human life and health and to the environment in the region and beyond.

In last month’s Legally Speaking column about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, we recalled that the Nuremberg Tribunal had described such wars of aggression as the “supreme international crime,” as they contain “the accumulated evil of the whole,” including the horrors of any ensuing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Then, on Feb. 28, the US and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran, killing its supreme leader and dozens of other senior officials.

How many violations?

This was the second aggression by the US this year, following its invasion of Venezuela in January and its continuing threats to the political sovereignty and territorial integrity of Colombia, Cuba and Denmark. Israel’s list of aggressions is much longer, as it occupies territory in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The list could also include Jordan and Iraq, as well as parts of Saudi Arabia and Egypt if the extremists that Netanyahu has aligned himself with make real their publicly stated plans of a Greater Israel.

All these violations fly in the face of Articles 1.1 and 2.4 of the UN Charter, which seek to prevent acts of aggression and other breaches of the peace, as well as to prohibit “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

Like President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair claiming self-defense on false pretexts of nuclear weapons for their aggression against Iraq in 2003, Trump and Netanyahu have presented similarly false pretexts to cloak their aggression against Iran in the cloth of self-defense. The claims are rather ironic, given that the US is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons — in Nagasaki and Hiroshima — while Israel is the only country in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons.

Where are the peacemakers?

Unlike his predecessor, Mohamed Elbaradei, who upheld the International Atomic Energy Agency’s conclusion that there was no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq, the current director-general of the nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has muted the agency’s finding that there is “no credible evidence” of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapons program. He instead helped beat the drums of war in various interviews on Israeli i24 TV before the June 2025 attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities and nuclear scientists and later with the American news program “Face the Nation,” after the February 2026 attacks against Iran and its senior leadership.

Grossi is right to warn, however, that the US and Israeli attacks might drive Iran’s new leaders to seek nuclear weapons. After all, Iran’s former supreme leader had renounced nuclear weapons as contrary to Islamic principles and, despite all the attacks in the past year, he had kept his nation within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

According to The Guardian, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the nuclear talks between Iran and the US, not only said publicly that a peace deal was within reach hours before the US and Israeli joint attack on Iran, he later expressed that “it was a shock but not a surprise when on 28 February — just a few hours after the latest and most substantive talks — Israel and America again launched an unlawful military strike against the peace that had briefly appeared really possible.”

Such sabotage of negotiations, much like Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in his first term, violates the demands of Article 2.3 of the UN Charter that “[a]ll Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

Meanwhile, Prince Turki bin Faisal of Saudi Arabia, in an interview with Christiane Amanpour on March 4, 2026, said he “was surprised at the President Trump’s surprise at the extent of Iran’s retaliation.” Despite rumors to the contrary, he recalled that Gulf leaders had “urged America not to undertake military action against Iran because all of us believed that that action will not remain contained in Iran — that Iran will retaliate against American presence in the area which is present in all of the Gulf States.”

Within its inherent right of self-defense against armed attack, as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, Iran did indeed retaliate not only against Israel but also against American military bases and presences in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran violated the laws of war, however, when it launched missiles against civilian infrastructure in these countries.

Where is the UN? 

To their credit, the Arab states advanced a draft resolution, co-sponsored by nearly 140 member states and adopted by the UN Security Council as Resolution 2817 (2026) without a veto by Russia or China. The resolution condemned Iran’s egregious attacks against the Arab states “in the strongest terms” for various violations of international humanitarian law, including intentional attacks on residential areas and civilian objects, as well as for the loss of civilian life.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, about 1,200 people have been killed and thousands more injured in the Arab and Gulf countries attacked by Iran. Seventeen people have been killed in Israel.

To the shame of its drafters and sponsors, however, Resolution 2817 never mentions the illegal attacks by the US and Israel, whose aggression gave rise to Iran’s retaliation, nor their violations of international humanitarian law, including the intentional targeting of residential neighborhoods to decapitate the Iranian regime.

The Norwegian Refugee Council has said at least 1,500 people have been killed and 18,000 more have been injured in Iran since Feb. 28. The Iranian Red Crescent has reported that the US and Israeli missiles have hit more than 82,000 civilian structures. The deadliest single strike so far occurred on Feb. 28, when the US bombed a girls’ school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, killing more than 175 people, including 100 children.

Today, and again to their credit, member states have tabled a draft resolution aiming to de-escalate the ongoing hostilities in the Gulf and to prevent further attacks on civilian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz; the draft resolution also calls for “a return to the path of diplomacy” and welcomes “ongoing efforts seeking a durable peace in the region.”

Again to their shame, the draft resolution under consideration falls short of international law in failing to condemn or even to mention the attacks by the US and Israel. The draft resolution only mentions the Gulf of Oman, without recognizing the legal and geographic fact that the territorial waters of Iran and Oman overlap in the Strait of Hormuz. In the face of threats and insults, some member states have closed their airspace to military flights heading to Iran while others continue to cater or cower to Trump and Netanyahu.

Moreover, while the draft resolution does not invoke Chapter VII, it determines that Iran’s actions near and around the Strait of Hormuz constitute a threat to international peace and security and purports to authorize member states for the next six months, “acting nationally or through voluntary multinational naval partnership,  . . . to use all defensive means necessary . . . to secure transit passage and to deter attempts to close, obstruct or otherwise interfere with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.”

The draft resolution ignores the fact that no such authorization is needed for those states who are acting in the inherent right of self-defense. The draft resolution also ignores that, while it has no right to use force against civilians objects whether at sea or on land, Iran does have the inherent right to defend itself and its territory, including its territorial waters against ongoing attacks by the US and Israel which precipitated the current crisis and disrupted regional security and global trade in the first instance.

The draft resolution is likely to be voted on April 4. The fate of the Gulf, the Middle East and the multilateral order hangs in the balance. If we are to emerge safer and stronger, the UN’s resolutions must not invoke international law selectively but equally.

Legally speaking, it is not only possible but also imperative that the United Nations condemn all war crimes and crimes against humanity equally — those committed by Iran, as well as those by the US and Israel. This includes US’ crimes against Iraqis and Iranians; Israel’s crimes against Iranians, as well as Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians; and, last but not least, Iran’s crimes against its many neighbors and, above all, against its own people.

And if there must be a bias, then let it be against Trump and Netanyahu — the partners in crime who are committing many aggressions, which, according to the Nuremburg Tribunal, contain the “accumulated evil of the whole.”

This is an opinion essay.

Mona Ali Khalil is an internationally recognized public international lawyer with 30 years of UN and other experience, including as a former senior legal officer in the UN and the IAEA, with expertise in peacekeeping, peace enforcement, disarmament and counterterrorism. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in international relations from Harvard University and a master’s in foreign service and a J.D. from Georgetown University. She is the founder and director of MAK LAW INTERNATIONAL and an affiliate of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict. She has co-authored several publications, including Empowering the UN Security Council: Reforms to Address Modern Threats, the UN Security Council Conflict Management Handbook and Protection of Civilians.