Israels attacks on Irans nuclear facilities expose the dangerous logic of striking first, even when theres nothing yet to strike, writes DrBinoy Kampmark.

PRE-EMPTIVE ATTACKS in international law are rarely justified. The threat must evince itself through an obvious intent to inflict injury, evidence preparations that show the threat to be what authorMichael Walzer callsa supreme emergency and arise in a situation where risk of defeat would be dramatically increased if force is not used.

Reaching an assessment on that matter is almost impossible. Evidence of such a threat by the aggressor state is bound to be speculative, concealing other strategic objectives that make that action amount to illegal, preventive war. Israelsongoing attackson Irans nuclear infrastructure are taking place in the absence of nuclear weapons, motivated by the hypothetical scenario that such weapons would be irretrievably developed and used against the Jewish state.

Iran, in other words, was being punished for a thought crime.

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TheIsraeli Defence Forcesreleased astatementexpressing the rationale:

There is even a concession on the part of IDF officials that triumphant success in the operation is not assured; Israelis needed to brace themselves before the inevitable reaction.

IDF Lieutenant GeneralEyal Zamirdeclared:

The Defence Minister,Israel Katz,offers somewishful thinkingin justifying the attack:

Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahupreferred lashings of hyperbole,declaringin a video statement to the nation:

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This is the language of self-denial, both on the issue of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear option indefinitely an unsustainable policy in the absence of peaceful dissuasion and the belief that such operations will result in some form of contained, well-behaved retaliation. With typical perversity, these attacks are taking place in step with demands by U.S. PresidentDonald Trumpthat Tehran resort to meek diplomacy, an effort that is bound to have been extinguished by these attacks.

And what of the threat posed by Iran?

In March this year, U.S. Director of National IntelligenceTulsi Gabbardtold the Senate Intelligence Committee that theassessmentwas:

But Netanyahu had already given adirectivein November 2024 to thwart alleged efforts by Tehran to build a nuclear device:

The broader Israeli logic here is less the coherence of the nuclear threat than one of settling scores and crippling a rival it has long accused of directing operations against its interests, if not directly than through its proxy militias.

As for the logic of non-acquisition, not much can be made of it. The advent of the Colt 45 revolver in the late 1800sarguably calmedthe American West by granting those with less power and influence a means of asserting their will against the powerful and landed. It became the Peacemaker, sometimes described as the Great Equaliser.

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As part of that same logic, the late international relations theoristKenneth N Waltzproposed that nuclear weapons made warless likely, believing that the gradual spread of nuclear weapons is to be more welcomed than feared. He even went so faras to arguein 2012 that Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons would most likely... restore stability to the Middle East. It was Israels durable nuclear monopoly in the Middle East that long fueled instability in the region.

The invention of nuclear weaponry was a statement of intent that possessing such a weapon would be akin to acquiring the shielding protection of a patron deity. This is a lesson the Israelis should know better than most, having themselves stealthily acquired an undeclared nuclear inventory. To not have it would weaken you, diminish international standing, making the non-possessor vulnerable to attack.

North Korea learned this salutary lesson, motivated by two supreme examples: the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the U.S.-ledCoalition of the Willingand the collective attack on Libya in 2011, ostensibly under the doctrine of responsibility to protect. The disarmament efforts made bySaddam Husseins Iraq andMuammar Gaddafis Libya rendered them vulnerable to attack. Lacking a terrifying deterrent, they were contemptuously rolled.

Attempts to control proliferation have been imperfect, largely because the nuclear option has never been entirely demystified. Despite the admirable strides made in international law to stigmatise nuclear weapons, best reflected in theTreaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, not to mention the tireless labours of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the nuclear weapons club remains a permanent provocation and incitement to non-nuclear weapons states. It is the red rag to the bull.

These attacks will do little to weaken the resolve of the mullahs in Tehran. They are roguish undertakings, murderous in their scope (the killing of scientists and their families stands out) and sneering at international law. Netanyahus absurd lecturing to the Iranian populace we are bombing you to free you will fall flat.

Most consequential will be confirmation on the part of theIslamic Statethat acquiring a nuclear weapon is more imperative than ever.

DrBinoy Kampmarkis a Cambridge Scholar and lecturer atRMIT University. You can follow Dr Kampmark@BKampmark.

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