{"id":5659,"date":"2025-06-17T05:23:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T03:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelgkarnavas.net\/blog\/?p=5659"},"modified":"2025-06-17T05:24:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T03:24:46","slug":"israeli-strike-on-iran-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelgkarnavas.net\/blog\/2025\/06\/17\/israeli-strike-on-iran-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"THE ISRAELI STRIKE ON IRAN: When Law Collides with Survival — Part I: Anticipatory Self-Defence in the Nuclear Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nothing under international law may justify these armed attacks and the deliberate targeting of protected civilians.<\/p>
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Sa\u00efd Benarbia, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme Director <\/em><\/span><\/p>
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I do not agree that the terms or intent of Article 51 eliminate the right of self-defence under customary international law…<\/p>
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Judge Schwebel, dissenting, ICJ Nicaragua case (1986)<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote><\/p>\n

Prolegomena <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s June 2025 unilateral attack on Iran\u2019s nuclear program tests the boundaries of self-defence in a world the UN Charter wasn\u2019t built to govern. For decades, Israeli policy has emphasized that it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. The strikes fulfilled that doctrine. It followed years of diplomacy, sabotage, and shadow war. And it came after repeated warnings that Iran had crossed enrichment thresholds and could reach nuclear breakout within months. That moment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued, demanded immediate action.<\/p>\n

Under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, states are prohibited from using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other state. The only explicit exception is found in Article 51: the \u201cinherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel has not claimed that Iran launched a missile or invaded its territory. Instead, it argues that a nuclear Iran would present an irreversible threat\u2014one that could not be deterred, reversed, or neutralized once operational.<\/p>\n

This raises a foundational question: What kind of threat justifies the use of force in self-defence before an actual armed attack?<\/em> Or more sharply: Can international law afford to wait for the flash of a nuclear detonation before permitting a state to act?<\/em><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s June 2025 strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities is more than a military maneuver \u2013 it\u2019s a collision between 20th-century legal doctrine and 21st-century existential risk. In a region shaped by proxy wars, nuclear aspirations, and enduring enmity, the attack did not occur in a vacuum. It was the culmination of years of strategic signaling, red lines, and international paralysis. And it forces us to confront whether international law \u2013 as currently written and applied \u2013 can meaningfully contend with irreversible threats like nuclear breakout.<\/p>\n

The Strike Before the Storm: Israel, Iran, and the Specter of Imminence<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early hours of June 13, 2025, Israel launched a devastating and meticulously coordinated strike against more than a dozen military and nuclear targets deep inside Iran. These included the Natanz enrichment facility and high-value assassinations of senior nuclear scientists and Quds Force commanders. The timing was conspicuous: the sixth round of US\u2013Iran nuclear negotiations was just days from resuming. While no breakthrough was imminent, diplomacy \u2013 however fragile \u2013 was still on the table.<\/p>\n

These negotiations had been ongoing for 60 days, the artificial deadline set by US President Donald Trump for a final agreement. Progress had been minimal, but the talks were continuing. There were whispers of a possible compromise: allowing Iran to retain 5\u201310% enriched uranium for civilian use \u2013 well below weapons-grade, but still anathema to Netanyahu. For Netanyahu, any level of enrichment by the Islamic Republic, regardless of purpose, is intolerable.<\/p>\n

The timing raised eyebrows not just for its proximity to the talks but because it intersected with another diplomatic front: France and Saudi Arabia were preparing to co-host a high-profile summit aimed at reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process. That initiative \u2013 stillborn many times over \u2013 poses a political threat Netanyahu has spent years working to deflect or sabotage. A viable two-state solution is politically radioactive for his hardline coalition, whose de facto<\/em> policy has been one of slow annexation and demographic erasure, particularly in the West Bank \u2013 and now Gaza.<\/p>\n

The war in Gaza is formally unrelated to the strike in Iran. Yet it is precisely the conduct of that war \u2013 its staggering civilian toll, the systematic destruction of infrastructure, the weaponization of humanitarian aid, and credible allegations of war crimes \u2013 that has eroded global moral support for Israel\u2019s existential security concerns. With senior Israeli officials and retired military officers openly acknowledging that war crimes and crimes against humanity are likely occurring, and with widespread belief that the war is being prolonged to shield Netanyahu from domestic prosecution, the international narrative is rapidly collapsing into a binary: Israel is acting out of impunity, not necessity.<\/p>\n

And yet, necessity does<\/em> exist. Netanyahu invoked the imminence of an Iranian nuclear capability \u2013 specifically, the accelerated development of both warheads and ballistic delivery systems \u2013 as justification for the June 13 operation. The threat is real. Iran\u2019s ambitions are well known. \u00a0Israeli intelligence reportedly believes Iran is mere months away from full nuclear breakout, with missile delivery systems already operational. While hard evidence wasn\u2019t shared publicly, former Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, a figure of unimpeachable security credentials, confirmed the seriousness of the threat in a recent CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour. So, I for one, accept the exigencies of the moment.<\/p>\n

But a capability that is “months or a year away” is not, by classical legal standards, imminent. The strike’s timing \u2013 on the eve of resumed negotiations \u2013 renders it suspect. Netanyahu could have waited days. Perhaps even weeks. The logic of preemption falters when the clock still has time.<\/p>\n

Still, legality is not always reducible to timing. A strike may be premature by diplomatic standards and yet legally justified if the threat, once realized, would be irreversible and existential. A nuclear strike would meet that threshold. It cannot be that Israel must wait to absorb such a blow before it can act to prevent it. That\u2019s suicidal.<\/p>\n

But why strike now?<\/p>\n

To understand the logic, one must look past the calendar and into the Israeli calculus. For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, any Iranian enrichment \u2013 civilian or military \u2013 is an existential threat. The nuclear clock was ticking, and diplomacy, in Israel\u2019s eyes, had failed. To Netanyahu, these were not reasons to wait \u2013 they were windows that could soon close.<\/p>\n

The Foggy Line Between Preemptive and Preventive\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

International law, at least as codified in Article 51 of the UN Charter, is strict: self-defence is permitted only \u201cif an armed attack occurs.\u201d But customary international law has long been more flexible, allowing anticipatory self-defence under narrow circumstances: when a threat is imminent, overwhelming, and leaves \u201cno choice of means and no moment for deliberation\u201d (Caroline standard, 1837). By those lights, Israel\u2019s June 13 strike sits in a legal grey zone.<\/p>\n

Was the threat imminent? Not quite. Israeli intelligence reportedly warned that Iran was just months from a nuclear breakout. That\u2019s urgent; not immediate. The International Atomic Energy Agency<\/a> (IAEA) had recently lost access to inspection sites, Iran\u2019s enrichment was accelerating past 60%, and missile development was advancing. Still, there was no missile in the sky, no warhead on a truck, no detonation test. The threat was real \u2013 but not yet realized.<\/p>\n

Under a strict interpretation of the law, that would render the strike unlawful. But Israel\u2019s legal defence likely rests on two pillars: necessity and proportionality. First, that the strike was necessary because once nuclear capability is achieved, it is irreversible. And second, that the action was proportionate to the scale of the threat\u2014a potential nuclear annihilation of a state the size of New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Israel is stretching the doctrine of anticipatory self-defence. I think not. But in any event, what\u2019s the alternative?<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s strategic environment\u2014where nuclear weapons can be launched in minutes, enrichment can proceed underground, and deterrence is undermined by asymmetric warfare\u2014clinging to a 19th-century standard of imminence is not just anachronistic; it is dangerous.<\/p>\n

Anticipatory self-defence in this context must account not only for timing, but for irreversibility. Once a nuclear capability is operationalized, neutralizing it becomes exponentially harder and riskier. The Israeli strikes may be understood, then, not as aggression, but as a last-resort effort to delay or degrade a maturing existential threat.<\/p>\n

Still, the legal footing remains unstable. Precedent is scarce, and global consensus deeply fractured. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly reaffirmed the Charter\u2019s prohibition on the use of force, rejected preemptive self-defence as a general principle, and emphasized the primacy of peaceful resolution and state accountability. Critics of Israel\u2019s strike rely on these positions to cast it as unlawful and dangerously destabilizing. The flip side to this criticism is whether Israel had much of choice. The timing might be open for debate but not the inevitability that sooner or later, it might be too late for Israel to act.<\/p>\n

But the deeper question remains: what doctrine can credibly guide state behavior when threats evolve faster than diplomacy can contain them? The challenge for international law is not to prevent states from defending themselves\u2014it is to remain relevant when survival is on the line.<\/p>\n

The International Commission of Jurists<\/a> (ICJ), however, was unequivocal:<\/p>\n

The ICJ condemns Israel\u2019s use of armed force against Iran\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity as a grave violation of the United Nations Charter and international law and a major threat to international peace and security.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Recalling IAEA warnings that attacks on nuclear facilities risk catastrophic radiation and long-term environmental harm, the ICJ noted the broader implications: Iran responded by announcing a new enrichment facility \u2013 its first major escalation since the IAEA Board of Governors found it in violation of non-proliferation obligations.<\/p>\n

The ICJ\u2019s Middle East and North Africa Programme Director, Sa\u00efd Benarbia, issued a passionate appeal:<\/p>\n

The UN Security Council must live up to its responsibilities in preventing and ensuring accountability for grave violations of the UN Charter and related threats to international peace and security. Watching idly by\u2026is not an option. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hyperbole, it\u2019s reality: the Security Council has long been paralyzed by permanent-member vetoes wielded less in the interest of peace than in defence of national allies or geopolitical agendas. The UN is not an arbiter of justice. It is a theater of power. And Israel knows this. So does Iran. No one should mistake the UN as a global institution of a legal system with enforceable norms. It is a political body that claims to promote order with rules that are bent\u2014or ignored\u2014by the strong. The UN can pass resolutions, but it cannot compel compliance. And certainly not from nuclear-armed or strategically indispensable states.<\/p>\n

This is what makes the strike so troubling. Not because Israel acted irrationally \u2013\u00a0 it didn\u2019t. But because the international legal system, already on life support, was not equipped to respond to a world where nuclear threats are real, diplomacy is fraying, and enforcement is a mirage. Israel struck because it believed no one else would stop Iran. And the world\u2019s broken machinery offered no credible deterrent.<\/p>\n

Parsing Self-Defence: Legal Labels and Practical Realities <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When examining the legal definitions, the factual context of the strikes, and how international law frames the right of self-defence under both the UN Charter and customary international law, one quickly sees that \u2013 apart from labeling the strikes as unprovoked (which they clearly were not, circumstances considering as explained) <\/strong>\u2013 the distinctions between different types of self-defence often become academic. The differences are discernibly obtuse<\/strong>,<\/strong> bordering on the logical fallacy of making distinctions without a difference<\/strong>.<\/strong> To navigate this debate, legal scholars often distinguish among anticipatory, preemptive, and preventive self-defence:<\/p>\n