The Gulf states have spent years attempting to dealer peace between Iran and the West: Qatar brokered nuclear talks, Oman offered back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia maintained direct dialogue with Iran by means of 2024 and into 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The concept that the Gulf states have a duty, an ethical one, to guard Iran from the implications of its actions due to good neighbourliness is now grotesque in context. Iran didn’t return good neighbourliness. Iran returned ballistic missiles.
Iran’s place is predicated on three propositions. First, that Iran acted in lawful self-defence pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Constitution; that host international locations relinquished territorial sovereignty by permitting US navy bases on their territory; and that the definition of aggression in Decision 3314 justifies the assault on these bases as lawful navy goals. Every of those propositions is legally flawed, factually skewed, and tactically improper. Collectively, they add as much as a authorized argument that, if accepted, would be sure that the Gulf is completely destabilised, the fundamental ideas of worldwide regulation are destroyed, and, in a curious twist, the very safety threats that Iran is reacting to are strengthened.
The self-defence declare doesn’t meet the required authorized threshold
The UN Constitution, in Article 51, permits using pressure solely in self-defence in opposition to an “armed assault”, and this time period just isn’t outlined by reference to the state invoking it. The Worldwide Court docket of Justice, in instances akin to Navy and Paramilitary Actions in and in opposition to Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States) (1986) and Oil Platforms (Iran v. United States) (2003), has interpreted the requirement of an “armed assault” beneath Article 51 of the UN Constitution restrictively. The Court docket distinguished between essentially the most grave types of using pressure, which qualify as armed assaults triggering the suitable of self-defence, and fewer grave makes use of of pressure that don’t. Accordingly, not each use of pressure, akin to minor incidents or restricted navy actions, quantities to an armed assault. On this gentle, the mere presence of international navy bases in Gulf states, maintained for many years beneath defence agreements with host governments, wouldn’t in itself represent an armed assault in opposition to Iran.
Necessity and proportionality are additionally a part of customary worldwide regulation, requiring that self-defence be needed and proportional. Iran has not demonstrated both. Focusing on the territory of different sovereign Arab states in response to the coverage selections of the US is neither needed, since diplomatic and United Nations avenues are nonetheless accessible, nor proportional, because it imposes navy penalties on states that aren’t a celebration to any battle with Iran.
Critically, Article 51 additionally has a compulsory procedural component, in that any state using self-defence is instantly required to inform the Safety Council. Iran has constantly evaded this requirement in every of its escalatory actions. Whereas this will appear to be a minor component, it’s the truth is the means by which the worldwide neighborhood is ready to confirm and test self-defence claims. A state that evades this requirement just isn’t using Article 51. It’s exploiting the language of Article 51.
Iran’s studying of Decision 3314 is a basic distortion
The availability of Article 3(f) of the Annex to United Nations Normal Meeting Decision 3314 (XXIX) (1974) states that an act of aggression contains the “motion of a State in permitting its territory, which it has positioned on the disposal of one other State, for use by that different State for perpetrating an act of aggression in opposition to a 3rd State”. Iran might depend on this provision to carry the Gulf states that host United States navy bases answerable for any act of aggression dedicated from their territories in opposition to Iran. However, the mere presence of navy bases just isn’t adequate to carry them to be lawful navy goals; this can rely upon their precise contribution to navy actions in opposition to Iran based mostly on the principles of worldwide humanitarian regulation.
Thus, such an Iranian studying could be improper on three distinct authorized grounds.
First, Decision 3314 is definitional in nature. The decision was adopted to help the Safety Council in figuring out when aggression has taken place, to not confer upon states the unilateral energy to punish states deemed to have dedicated aggression by means of using pressure. The decision itself, in Article 2, asserts the facility of the Safety Council to make the willpower of what constitutes aggression. The self-application of Article 3(f) of the decision is due to this fact bypassed altogether.
Second, Article 3(f) speaks of the lively launching of an assault, not the passive internet hosting of a navy base. The authorized distinction is key. A state, in signing a defence treaty with one other and internet hosting the latter’s troops on its soil, is partaking in a measure of sovereignty. A state, actively launching, coordinating, or enabling navy strikes in opposition to a 3rd occasion, is engaged in a unique matter altogether. Iran has not credibly proven this latter case. The presence of US troops or bases within the Gulf has been a truth for many years, and this has not constituted armed aggression in opposition to Iran beneath any authorized customary.
Third, even when Article 3(f) have been relevant, the suitable course could be to deliver the matter to the Safety Council, to not launch unilateral navy strikes. Normal Meeting resolutions don’t override the Constitution. Iran can’t depend upon a non-binding decision defining phrases to override the Chapter VII necessities for using pressure or the clear standards of Article 51.
Sovereignty can’t be dictated by a neighbour’s strategic preferences
Iran, in invoking the precept of excellent neighbourliness, asks the Arab Gulf states to disclaim the US basing rights. Good neighbourliness is a two-way precept, and it doesn’t permit for interference within the inside affairs of different states, definitely not interference within the selections of different states just because they’re deemed inconvenient to the interfering state. All UN states possess the inherent proper to conclude defence treaties with whomever they select, and that is so whatever the opinion of their neighbours.
The asymmetry of Iran’s place is putting and self-disqualifying. Iran itself has lively navy relationships with Russia and China. Iran arms, funds, trains, and helps the actions of non-state navy actors in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Drive operates overtly in numerous states, and this has been extensively documented in United Nations Panels of Consultants reviews, in addition to different worldwide monitoring reviews. In response to the requirements that Iran applies to the Gulf states, any state that hosts the actions of the IRGC, the switch of Iranian arms, or the coordination of Iranian proxies on its soil could be partaking in aggression in opposition to third events. Iran is not going to settle for this precept when it’s utilized to itself. A authorized precept that’s unacceptable to the occasion to whom it might be utilized just isn’t a authorized precept in any respect; it’s a political software.
A doctrine that defeats Iran’s personal strategic pursuits
From the angle of worldwide relations concept, Iran’s place follows the logic of offensive realism, which seeks to take away the exterior balancing structure of regional neighbours by claiming it to be hostile in nature. Nonetheless, this strategy is empirically self-defeating.
Underneath stability of risk concept, states react to offensive functionality, geographic proximity, and aggressive intentions. Iran’s doctrine, in asserting the suitable to strike any state that hosts forces it perceives as a risk, drives every risk variable to most ranges for every state within the area. The apparent consequence, evident within the knowledge, is that the states within the area and exterior powers have gotten extra, slightly than much less, securely built-in. The Fifth Fleet’s everlasting base in Bahrain, the UAE’s negotiations over F-35s, Saudi Arabia’s deployments of THAADs, and Qatar’s enlargement of the Al Udeid base are reactions to Iran’s escalation, not causes of it.
From the angle of constructivism, the legitimacy of a authorized argument can also be partly based mostly on the normative credibility of the state that presents the argument. The report of Iran’s compliance with IAEA laws, together with the enrichment of uranium to a purity stage of 60 % or extra in 2023–2024, interference with inspections, the elimination of monitoring cameras, and the general violation of the non-proliferation regime, has undermined the credibility of the state considerably. A state that’s itself a violator of the authorized regime can’t declare the position of a law-abiding state in search of safety beneath the norms of the authorized regime.
Iran’s authorized rationale was all the time theoretically improper. What has occurred since February 28, 2026, has made Iran’s actions morally and politically improper. Iran didn’t merely goal US navy belongings. The truth of the state of affairs is now documented and simple. Ballistic missiles and drones have been launched in opposition to Gulf states within the opening days of the battle. This marked the primary time one actor had concurrently attacked all six GCC states. Iran escalated its assaults in deliberate phases. Day 1: Iranian missiles have been fired in opposition to navy bases. Day 2: Iranian missiles have been fired in opposition to civilian infrastructure and airports. Day 3: Iranian missiles have been fired in opposition to the power sector. Days 3 and 4: The US Embassy in Riyadh was attacked by Iran. Worldwide airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait have been attacked by Iranian missiles, ensuing within the suspension of flights all through the area. Movies from Bahrain documented an Iranian Shahed drone attacking an house constructing. This isn’t self-defence. That is the collective punishment of sovereign nations that went to extraordinary lengths to keep away from the battle.
The rationale offered by Iran falls flat when one considers the actions Iran itself took. Its doctrine held that solely targets concerned within the preparation or launch of an assault in opposition to Iran have been reliable targets. Civilian airports should not navy bases. Lodges in Palm Jumeirah should not navy command centres. An house advanced in Manama just isn’t a weapons storage facility. By Iran’s personal acknowledged authorized rationale, none of those targets was reliable, but they have been attacked. This was not a authorized doctrine in any respect; it was a pretext for coercion, and the conduct of conflict revealed this to be the case.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.