On June 21, the United States committed an act of war, attacking a sovereign nation that had neither attacked nor threatened it without the approval of the Security Council. Iran’s nuclear facilities were severely damaged. But that is not all that was damaged. The aggression has potentially left international law in ruins.
America’s consistent appeals to the rules-based order instead of international law has long left the impression in much of the world that the U.S. selectively applies the rules when it suits them and exempts itself from the rules when it does not. That impression will be strengthened by the inconsistency of simultaneously condemning Russia for violating Ukrainian sovereignty by an act of war while the U.S. violates Iran’s sovereignty by dropping some of the largest bombs in the world on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities.
Prior to the U.S. attack, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi pleaded that “It’s up to the international community to condemn this, to prevent this. Otherwise, there will be nothing left of international law.”
And it is not only the architecture of international law that has been damaged by the bombing, it is also the foundations of diplomacy. The U.S. has undermined its credibility as a diplomatic nation and irreparably damaged its credibility in this and future negotiations. The U.S. did not just violate an agreement as they did when they pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement with Iran as they did in 2018. This time around, Trump used diplomacy as cover for his war plans. The promise of a next round of talks in two days was, according to Trump advisors, “a headfake,” and the talk of two weeks to decide was a “misdirection.” In using diplomacy as a cover for war, Araghchi said, “the U.S. betrayed diplomacy. They betrayed negotiations.”
“We were in the middle of talks and negotiation with Europeans [that] happened only two days ago in Geneva, when this time, Americans decided to blow it up…. They have proved that they are not men of diplomacy.” “What conclusion would you draw?” Araghchi asked.
It is not just Iran, but other nations that will draw this conclusion, jeopardizing important future negotiations.
In addition to damaging international law and diplomacy, there is also the practical question of retaliation. After the attack, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said, “The Americans must receive a response to their aggression.” Araghchi added that “Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest and people.” That response could endanger the 40,000 U.S. military personnel based on American military installations in the region. Iran has now warned that its military has a “free hand” to attack American targets. It could also pull other countries in the region into the war, especially if an assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei is attempted.
On Monday, Iran made good on its promise. At least one missile was launched toward an American military base in Iraq, and at least ten were launched toward the American Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East and the headquarters of U.S. Central Command. In total, Iran says they fired 14 missiles: as many missiles as the U.S. dropped bombs. Iranian officials say that they coordinated the strikes with Qatar and Washington to allow them to retaliate while minimizing casualties and allowing all sides an exit ramp. There were no casualties. One building was struck with no damage to military infrastructure.
There is also the outstanding assessment of how successful the U.S. bunker buster bombs were. The planners of the attack originally only hoped that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would “set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more.” And it is not yet clear how successful the bombing was.
Addressing the nation on the night of the attack, President Trump told the world that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” But that early excitement soon gave way to more sober and uncertain assessments. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, replaced “obliterated” with “severe damage and destruction.” There were reports that the bombs had not destroyed the underground complex. A senior U.S. official said that “the heavily fortified facility” had been “severely damaged” but that the strikes “did not destroy” it. Similarly, the Israeli military assessment is that it “has not been completely destroyed.”
Even if the facility had been obliterated, there is still the very big question of what was in it. Israeli officials believe that Iran had preemptively removed much of the equipment and enriched uranium from the facility, knowing it was about to be hit. According to International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi, “Iran has made no secret that they have protected this material.” Asked to clarify whether he means that Iran had relocated its enriched uranium, Grossi replied, “I do.”
More fundamentally, there is the question of rebuilding. You can bomb facilities, but you cannot bomb decades of acquired knowledge on building a highly advanced nuclear program. Iran can simply rebuild. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization has vowed that Iran would not be prevented from developing its nuclear energy program.
But there is a greater danger that choosing a military solution over a diplomatic solution could, in the long run, backfire. This time when Iran rebuilds its nuclear program, it may do so hidden from the eyes of nuclear inspectors and the world. When Iran built its civilian nuclear program, it did so with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency having unprecedented access.
When the U.S. bombed Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities, they not only violated international law regarding attacking another country, they violated Iran’s “inalienable right to a civilian [nuclear] program” as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That treaty failed to benefit or protect Iran, and the U.S. violated it even though Iran was in compliance.
When I asked former Iranian nuclear negotiator [ret] Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian if this failure of the NPT might move Iran to withdraw from the treaty, he answered, “Perhaps Iran does not rush to withdraw but ultimately this could be a serious option.”
Mousavian has since written that having its legal nuclear facilities bombed by two nuclear-armed countries could persuade Iran, not only that the NPT has no value, but that “is in fact harmful.” Countries that did develop nuclear weapons – which Iran did not – outside of the treaty “have remained immune from military attacks.” Trump and the U.S. have not bombed North Korea. “It is only natural that following the military attack,” Mousavian writes, “Iran would reconsider its nuclear strategy, including its continued membership in the NPT.”
Whereas the JCPOA saw Iran develop a peaceful, civilian nuclear program withing an unprecedented inspection regime, the U.S. military solution could provoke Iran into continuing its nuclear program entirely out of the eyes of international inspectors.
But there is a greater danger still. Iran has committed on religious and legal grounds not to build a nuclear bomb, and, right up to the dropping of the bombs, U.S. intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency continued to assess that that was still true. Two days before the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reported that “We did not find in Iran elements to indicate that there is an active, systematic plan to build a nuclear weapon. We have not seen elements to allow us, as inspectors, to affirm that there was a nuclear weapon that was being manufactured or produced somewhere in Iran.”
Now, that could change. According to reporting by The New York Times, “Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that Iranian leaders were likely to shift toward producing a bomb if the American military attacked the Iranian uranium enrichment site Fordo or if Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader.”
Mousavian told CNN that the U.S. is telling Iran that “even if there is transparency, even if all nuclear ambiguities are resolved, the U.S…. would attempt to bring regime change. That’s why you Iranians need nuclear deterrence, which is a nuclear bomb. I think,” he added, this is what the U.S. is “practically telling Iranians: get the bomb as the best deterrence. And I believe if these policies continue, Iran would go for a nuclear bomb.”
The U.S. has possibly done the one thing that could make Iran decide to build a nuclear weapon. That is hardly the outcome the U.S. was pursuing.
The American bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities may appear, in the short term, to be a “spectacular military success.” But that success could be ephemeral, as Iran’s key facilities may have survived, and its enriched uranium may have been rescued. Worse still, America’s actions could lead to the one result it sought to prevent: Iran pursuing a civilian enrichment program – and perhaps even a weapons program – outside of the eyes of nuclear inspectors. And the damage could go beyond the practical damage in Iran with America’s actions undermining long-term diplomacy and international law.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
