International Law and Partiality

Rastinews — The joint Israeli-American attack opened a war on Iran. Commentary and statements on the laws of war and international law naturally followed. Objective and subjective assessments of whether this war violates the laws of war and international law diverge widely, arriving at very different conclusions.

The core treaties governing war are (the first drawn up in 1864 and later updated, expanded through additional protocols, and finalized in four conventions) the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the (first in 1899, the second in 1907) Hague Conventions. Numerous further protocols and treaties regulating the laws of war rest on these two foundations, and treaties adopted after the Second World War in particular tend to prohibit war outright.

The antiwar maxim "the worst peace is better than the best war" has its counterpart in international law as well, but before the two world wars, the "just war" theory served as justification for many conflicts — the idea of "just war" also echoes what Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, wrote: "If you want peace, prepare for war." After the Second World War, with the founding of the United Nations, even a "just war" no longer permitted a formal state declaration of war, and the authority to use force passed to the UN Security Council.

In fact, present-day international law keeps the "just war" doctrine alive at the UN level — the Korean War and the Gulf War are cases in point. The "just war" justification holds that a state has violated international law, but intervention against that state is lawful only by a UN resolution; intervention without one is itself contrary to international law.

Even if Iran, or any other country, violates international law, intervening without a UN resolution is itself a violation of international law. And since obtaining a UN resolution is not possible either (the permanent members Russia and China would simply exercise their veto, and no resolution could pass), the sanction imposed for the violation of international law becomes, in turn, a violation of international law. What's more, those who say "you are violating international law" are violating international law themselves. The deadlock is rather like the chicken-and-egg problem.

It is widely argued that the principled or anti-imperialist stance toward this war is to back Iran, because the attack violates international law. A more reasonable expectation would be to condemn both Iran and the intervention. I, personally, refuse to support Iran — I would even support the intervention — though I can be hesitant about an intervention of this particular kind.

A peaceful policy and opposition to war are indeed principled stances, that is true, but supporting Iran is not the position that follows from them. Iran violated international law before this war, and it violates it still. Suddenly remembering international law only once it is on the receiving end of an unjust attack is hypocrisy. But that is not the real reason for my position on this war — it is, rather, that I consider Iran's domestic law and its regime entirely lawless.

Much of what the US and Israel do internationally is illegitimate; Israel committed genocide in Gaza and grave war crimes. Much of what Iran does internationally is equally illegitimate, as is the form of power it has built at home. Iran ranks among the states that resort most to state terrorism. It is also the patron of numerous armed groups across the region, pursuing imperial aims to the extent its power allows.

There is something I keep saying: in a unipolar world, where socialism has ceased to be an alternative, every country is more or less imperialist, harboring imperial designs toward countries weaker than itself. China, Russia, Iran, and others are no different from the United States — the only difference is power. China is draining the lifeblood of most African countries and exploiting everything they have, and has taken many South Asian countries hostage through debt dependency. I am astonished by those who mistake support for China or Iran, dressed up as anti-Americanism, for anti-imperialism, and by those who feel sympathy for China and Russia as if they were socialist regimes. Every one of them is colonialist in its own way, and some are murderous regimes at home besides. That is why, as a socialist, I view this war as a war between imperialists; as a Kurd, I look at Iran's relationship with the Kurds and say Iran had it coming; and as a jurist, I define Iran as an enemy of democracy and human rights. Those attacking Iran are dirty and guilty too, so this war can fairly be seen as a case of it taking a thief to catch a thief.

The pursuit, in international law, of a peaceful foreign policy and of legitimate power grounded in democracy and the people was a lesson drawn from the First and Second World Wars. There was a consensus against letting authoritarian powers drag both their own countries and the world into catastrophe — and the world was, moreover, bipolar. The generations who knew the devastation the two world wars had wrought have since passed away; the lessons were forgotten, or the generations who knew them lost their influence over world politics.

The bipolar world ended, and capitalism was freed from its restraints; there was no longer any need to dress it up and sell it against a socialist bloc, no longer any need to look for governments' commitment to human rights, their democratic credentials, or their legitimacy in any sense. Just as anything and anyone without an alternative grows reckless, capitalism grew reckless too, and the Cold War of the bipolar era turned into a fragmented, regionalized, staggered war of capital. One could say that the Third World War has been escalating ever since unipolarity began, and it has now reached the level of global visibility. Capitalism's foundation is not the free market — it is war. In an economic system built on power, power comes before the free market.

American and Israeli bombs will not bring democracy — that much is true! But Iran, which recognizes no law either at home or abroad, cannot expect to invoke international law either. It has no right to. One could say Iran's peoples should overthrow the regime, but they have tried, again and again; they have suffered greatly and been massacred in large numbers. What's more, the regime's opponents have never taken up arms. Despite facing a murderous, merciless regime, and despite having no democratic channel open to them at all, they still pushed for that path and exercised their right to protest — and were killed every time. Cranes were brought into public squares, and executions were carried out in the open, as a lesson to those left behind. Kurdish politicians were assassinated, and these treacherous attacks were carried out even while supposed negotiations and talks were said to be under way.

No offense to anyone, but in the face of this record, I side with Iran not one bit, and I cannot accept that supporting Iran is the litmus test of anti-imperialism. I would prefer to see the Iranian regime fall from within, but the regime will not allow it — consider that Pahlavi is now positioning himself as a candidate for the post-mullah era, while inside Iran the opposition cannot even organize enough to produce a leading cadre, let alone alternative, homegrown leaders. Look at Russia in the same light: there is no democracy or human rights at home, and opposition leaders are killed off one by one, by assassination, poisoning, or other means. Russia's invasion of Ukraine cannot be justified by Ukraine's wish to join NATO, either. Claiming the right to tell a country "you may not join this or that international organization" is itself a product of an imperialist mindset. And if it weren't for fear of Russia, would Ukraine have wanted to join NATO at all? Russia proved the point through its invasion — it showed that Ukraine was right to be afraid. Shouldn't the UN, in the normal course of things, have voted to use force against Russia? Russia, as a permanent member, holds the right to veto any such resolution, and so such a resolution can never be passed.

The dilemma here is that the intervening party often has a checkered record of its own. Its real purpose is rarely to defend international law. The intervening party, too, ends up violating that same law. International legal texts read as ideal and sufficient on paper. But the mechanisms of enforcement and decision-making breed hypocrisy and double standards. When Saddam used chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja, no state or international body raised its voice. Yet under international law and the laws of war, chemical weapons use ranks among the gravest of war crimes, one demanding immediate military intervention under a UN resolution.

This was not Saddam's only violation of international law, nor his only war crime, and intervention against him was legitimate. Yet the world met his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds with deaf silence, only to intervene at once when he invaded Kuwait.

Only two bodies hold real enforcement power internationally. One is the United Nations, which can authorize military intervention through the Security Council. As described above, the veto held by permanent members means that even when intervention is fully justified, urgent, and unavoidable, one permanent member will always veto it to protect its own interests and relationships.

The other body with enforcement power is the Council of Europe, made up of member states that have signed the European Convention on Human Rights "to protect democracy and human rights." Through the European Court of Human Rights, it can rule on member states' rights violations and order an end to them. But in Turkey, ECtHR rulings that touch the government's core interests go unenforced, and the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers has so far done no more than meet periodically to voice its concerns.

No government should be able to invoke sovereignty to strip away democracy and human rights. For that reason alone, the UN and every other international body must be able to take firm action, showing the will and resolve to choke off regimes hostile to democracy and human rights. Military force, of course, must remain a last resort and an exception. International law should not merely protect peaceful relations between states — it must also stop states from terrorizing their own populations.

Sovereignty must never mean a government can say: "They are my citizens. I can beat them, arrest them, or kill them as I please. I can gut every one of their rights and hold them under repression and threat." Take Iran, for instance, or any other anti-democratic regime that denies human rights and inflicts every form of cruelty on its citizens. It should be given two or three months. If it fails in that time to move toward democracy, uphold human rights, and build a fair judiciary, the international community should be able to rule that its leaders will be arrested, barred from international travel, denied state-level visits, and blocked from entering any agreement. Leaders of unlawful regimes should face charges at the International Criminal Court, and those who refuse to stand trial should be subject to arrest.

Why, again, should a soldier die in war on the orders of tyrants and despots? Why should civilians and children die because of war? Why should ordinary people pay the price and suffer harm because of tyrants and despots? Once such a global structure and will is established, international intervention will indeed become fully legitimate. And humanity will secure that global will, sooner or later.