The war crime is committed. It is not the first of its kind, and it will not be the last. But it is of a kind we once believed we had outlawed. Without a formal declaration of war, without having itself been attacked, without the pretence of rescuing a treaty-bound ally, the United States has launched air strikes against Iran. Not even the usual fig leaf of Security Council authorisation has been secured. There was no provocation, no Congressional war powers resolution, no self-defence claim that would stand before any halfway competent tribunal. There was only Mr Trump, growling before the cameras, and the jet trails streaking eastward into the dark.
Since 1945, it has been the settled doctrine of international law that the unprovoked use of armed force across borders is the “supreme international crime.” American officials mouthed those words at Nuremberg. They hung men for aggressive war. But it seems the United States is no longer bound by laws it helped to write. It reserves for itself the right to kill. And what began as a post-war commitment to world order has curdled into a licence for violence.
We are not dealing here with a rogue colonel or an unapproved drone strike. This was a concerted, large-scale attack on another sovereign nation—one that had not touched American soil nor harmed American citizens. On the face of it, Mr Trump is guilty of a war crime. In a sane world, he would be arrested if he set foot in any country that recognises the Rome Statute. That he will not be is due to the inconvenient fact that America recognises no authority above itself.
That Mr Trump may be senile is no defence. We are long past the point when the mental decay of Western leaders might be seen as comic. Whether his failing brain was coaxed into action by men whispering from Tel Aviv or Langley, or whether the lights behind his eyes flickered with what remains of a will, the decision was taken. Bombs were dropped. Bases were flattened. The excuse, if one can use the word, is that he was under unbearable pressure to come to the aid of the Israelis. Let us say no more about that pressure, except to note its intensity and its regularity. Like the tides, it exerts itself without justification, without resistance.
But the deed is done. The missiles have landed. And we are left with one question: what comes next?
In the short term, the answer lies in Tehran. The Iranians have already retaliated—though not, tellingly, against the Americans. That restraint, whether strategic or moral, is the most important fact of the week. The Iranian leadership, unlike its Israeli counterpart, appears to understand escalation. It knows that America has no stomach for war. It knows that Mr Trump has no Congressional mandate, no popular support, no legal cover, and no plan. The French have declared the strike illegal. The bond markets are twitching. If Iran keeps its blows aimed solely at Israel, it paints Mr Trump into a corner.
And the blows are still falling. Israel’s Iron Dome—or Iron Sieve, as some now call it—has shown the usual weaknesses of Western military hardware: it is expensive; it is unreliable; it is built for lobbyists, not actual use. A third of the missiles reach their targets. The Israeli Defence Force admits to twenty civilian sites hit, which means the number of military hits is likely far higher. Video footage circulating online shows Israel’s National Security Minister, Ben Gvir, confronting the head of Mossad in what looks like a very public display of panic. While it is difficult to verify what is said—I am ignorant of Hebrew—the body language tells enough. The Israelis expected a short, surgical confrontation. What they received was an education.
Their interceptors are almost gone. They may last another week with American resupply. After that, they are naked. Iran, meanwhile, is still holding back its heaviest arsenal. No one knows the full size of that arsenal—least of all the Israelis, whose early overconfidence now looks suicidal. The Iranians have not only absorbed a first strike but responded with force and discipline. They have shown that they are not a pushover. And they have done so while reminding America of its other humiliations: the Houthis crippling US carriers; the Houthis wrecking CENTCOM’s Gulf HQ; the Houthis doing what Iran has now done with far less capacity.
The Iranians gave advance warning before striking the American base—perhaps out of courtesy, perhaps to deliver a message. The Americans evacuated. The base, CENTCOM’s regional headquarters, is now rubble. That message was received. It is this: “We are still near the bottom of the escalation ladder, and you are already ducking.”
To escalate further would be madness. The Americans cannot fight another Middle Eastern war. They have neither the manpower nor the will. Their logistics are a shambles. Their public is exhausted. Their enemies are coordinated in ways no Western planner seems to grasp. This is not 2003, and certainly not 1991. If Iran escalates against Israel and avoids America, it forces the West to defend the indefensible—a crumbling settler ethnostate whose only remaining friend is a rotting empire directed by a possibly senile president. The Iranians would be wise to continue that strategy.
There is a deeper reason for restraint. Iran is now the front line of BRICS. It carries not only its own interests, but the strategic patience of Russia, China, India, and Brazil. If it launches a war that spins into global chaos, it loses the moral high ground it currently holds. If, on the other hand, it keeps the conflict local—crippling Israel’s military, harrying its cities, grinding down its defences—it not only humiliates the regional enemy but exposes the global one. There is no need for dramatic victories. A long, televised defeat for Israel is enough. The Americans cannot sustain casualties. They cannot sustain a bond market crash. They cannot even sustain another PR disaster.
Iran can. Iran has lived through embargoes, assassinations, sabotage, cyber-warfare, and internal subversion. Its regime is not popular. Its people are not content. But the Iranian State is built for war. Its patience is long. Its tolerance for suffering is deep. And it now has options that the West has never imagined: economic sabotage, energy disruption, asymmetrical attrition. The West ran out of ammunition trying to stop the Houthis. Iran has not yet begun.
That is why this is not yet World War III. It is possible that the Israelis have been given an excuse to surrender: a limited strike by America on Iran, and they will stop their own aggression. If this happens, the Iranians will stop responding, and allow the Israelis to go back to the easier job of bombing hospitals and killing children in Gaza. In the morally degraded world that we now inhabit, this might seem a mercy. But it seems an unlikely mercy. It would also be a fragile mercy. The space would still be there for an accident or a false flag operation. One downed American plane, one dead serviceman, and the headlines will write themselves. The call for revenge. The talk of red lines. The reappearance of retired generals on cable news. If Trump retaliates, if he escalates without cause or exit, he may drag the world into a general war. But it will not be one fought on equal terms.
The truth is that the American Empire has never been weaker. Its allies are mutinous. Its currency is fraying. Its carriers are exposed. Its leaders are old and stupid and, I repeat my suspicion, in some cases they are senile. They are surrounded by flatterers and blackmailers. Iran, by contrast, is tougher in every respect.
If this sounds like praise, I will be clear: I do not admire the Iranian regime. It is a theocratic despotism. But it has not attacked America. And it has shown far more strategic intelligence in the past week than anything seen from Washington since Eisenhower.
Let us end, then, with this bitter truth: the greatest threat to world peace is not Iran. It is the United States. And unless something breaks inside the imperial mind—unless something can stop the madmen who speak in America’s name—we may all go down in the flames of another unnecessary war, launched in the name of liberty, against a people who dared to say no.
No to aggression. No to bombing. No to the Empire.
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