Israel’s US-backed brazen violations of Iranian sovereignty mark a dangerous escalation in Washington’s long war on independent states, exposing the impotence of international law and the necessity of armed resistance.
On the early morning of 13 June, Israel launched an aerial assault on Iran, killing over 224 people to date. This is the gravest breach of Iranian sovereignty since the US-backed Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, widely understood as a proxy effort to dismantle the nascent Islamic Republic.
In its opening salvo, Tel Aviv assassinated top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, scientists, and academics, striking residential blocks and faculty housing. The war continues into its fifth day, with Israel and Washington openly seeking to collapse the Islamic Republic and crush the region’s anti-imperialist resistance.
News reports indicate that Israel has bombed two hospitals in Tehran, Iranian airports, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iran’s state broadcaster during a live broadcast, and some critical infrastructure. Iran has quickly and decisively responded in self-defense, proving that its military capabilities have not been diminished, and posing a far greater threat to Israel’s military, intelligence, and economic interests than Tel Aviv had forseen.
A war of aggression, by the book
Iran claims it has taken down four F-35 bombers, the US’s most highly prized fighter jet. Although Tehran has not yet offered visual evidence of this, US military contractor Lockheed Martin saw its stock price take a tumble after the reports aired. Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear energy and ballistic missile facilities remain operational, and the nation’s air defenses are back online after Friday’s shock events.
Under international law, Israel’s actions constitute a flagrant act of aggression. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter categorically states:
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
These attacks also meet the threshold of a “crime of aggression” as defined in Article 8bis of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which defines such a crime as:
“The planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.”
What about Tehran’s retaliatory attacks against Tel Aviv then? Iran’s military response is protected under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which affirms the inherent right of self-defense against armed attack:
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
Tel Aviv and its supporters in western capitals have tried to frame Israel’s aggression as an act of “self-defense” against a potential Iranian attack ”someday,” but like the Bush Doctrine that sought to normalize pre-emptive aggressions against US adversary states, there is no international law that allows this.
Iran has now, on the basis of Israel’s illegal and unprovoked act of aggression, formally called for the UN Security Council to convene and address Israel’s unlawful assaults.
The UN’s silence, the Axis of Resistance speaks
Legal scholars recognize that international law is structurally compromised – even impotent and complicit – when it comes to the sovereignty of states targeted by western powers.
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its repeated violations of US-brokered ceasefire agreements in the strip and Lebanon starkly illustrate the paralysis of international institutions. It is only through determined initiatives of Global South states, such as South Africa, that Israel’s Gaza violations have endured any international legal scrutiny – as in the cases lodged at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to adjudicate on Israel’s genocidal actions, and at the ICC to punish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes.
Predictably, the UN has only called for “maximum restraint” rather than issuing any condemnation of Israel’s unlawful aggression. Iran, like other resistance movements and governments across the Global South, understands these limitations. It nonetheless engages international law strategically to assert its legitimacy, fortify regional alliances, and frame its resistance as both lawful and necessary – to build a popular global support system for the regional resistance, and quite literally contain West Asia’s ongoing liberation struggle against the US and its proxies.
As Mohsen Baharvand, former deputy minister at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, explains to The Cradle:
“Although the legal and political foundations of the existing international order have become weak and shaky and international law has been marginalized, the foundations of international law have not completely lost their validity and its rules remain the rules governing the international order.”
Many governments share this reading of the law’s asymmetries and have publicly backed Iran’s sovereign right to self-defense. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi:
“China explicitly condemns Israel’s violation of Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity … [and] supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, defending its legitimate rights and interests.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning Tel Aviv’s actions as a “clear violation of the UN Charter and established principles of international law.” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the attacks “unprovoked” and “deeply alarming,” warning of wider destabilization. Venezuela, Cuba, and other allied states have issued similar denunciations.
Encircling China, attacking its partners
With the “rules-based international order” exposed as a western tool of coercion, the multipolar vision led by China, Russia, Iran, and others now faces a critical test. The US-Israeli orchestrated assault on Iran is not isolated – it seeks to send shockwaves across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Iran plays a strategic role in this emerging bloc, maintaining robust security, military, and economic ties with Russia, China, Venezuela, Sudan, Yemen, and resistance forces in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. These are the frontlines of opposition to US global hegemony.
This attack must also be understood in a broader strategic context. China is now encircled by US-led wars – Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan – all sustained by US arms and proxies. Recent US efforts to trigger instability along the India–Pakistan border were thwarted by Pakistani forces equipped with Chinese air defenses.
Since the Obama administration, Washington has explicitly identified China as its primary adversary. Under US President Donald Trump, the hybrid war has intensified. Today, the US targets Chinese allies to fracture regional ties and delay Asia’s political and economic rise.
But history cannot be paused. Iran, Russia, and above all China have not only endured but also emerged stronger. The hybrid wars on each of these nations began decades ago, and each has proven extremely resilient and savvy not only at remaining firm at the national scale, but also at aligning their continental and geopolitical interests as they rise.
Diplomacy is dead, profit lives on
On the battlefield, the rising Eurasian powers have proven their capabilities. But diplomacy remains their weakest front. The Iran nuclear deal was a bait-and-switch. So were the ceasefire talks in Gaza and Lebanon. This negotiating tactic – familiar in US corporate culture – serves to extract concessions while advancing aggression.
The US remains the most formidable empire in history. It disregards treaties, tramples international law, and rewrites rules to secure profit through warfare. Clausewitz’s maxim no longer applies; for the US, war is not politics by other means – it is profit by other means.
Diplomacy alone cannot halt the imperial machinery. The outcome of this and other enduring US-backed conflicts will be determined on the battlefield. The sooner the Eurasian bloc embraces this hard truth, the sooner that balance can shift.
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Nina Farnia is a legal historian and expert on U.S. foreign policy. Her forthcoming book, Imperialism and Resistance, is due out in 2026 with Stanford University Press.
Originally published by The Cradle
