International Law

This November marks 108 years since the Balfour Declaration, a promise written in London by men who had never walked the soil of Palestine. Authored by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary at the time and signed on 2 November 1917, it became the seed of a new state and the undoing of another people. For the Jewish world, it offered recognition after centuries of exile. For Palestinians, it marked the beginning of erasure.

To fully grasp its significance and the controversies surrounding it, it is essential to understand three key concepts that underpin the narrative: Zionism, antisemitism, and Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism. These terms not only illuminate the motivations behind the declaration but also help to elucidate the subsequent century of strife in the region.

Zionism: A Response to Antisemitism in the Quest for a Jewish Homeland

The Balfour Declaration did not emerge from nowhere. It came from fear, exile, and the slow death of faith in Europe’s conscience. In 1882, Leon Pinsker, a Jewish physician, wrote Auto-Emancipation after watching mobs tear through Jewish towns in Russia. Houses burned. Families fled. The pogroms of 1881 ended any illusion that Jews could ever belong in Europe. Pinsker saw what others refused to see: no law, no revolution, no education could protect a people the world had already decided to keep apart.

Safety would come only through self-determination, through land rather than tolerance. A generation later, Theodor Herzl carried that truth into politics through the Dreyfus Affair, when a Jewish French officer was condemned for a crime he did not commit, stripping away Europe’s mask of enlightenment. Even in Paris, the supposed capital of reason, antisemitism ruled the crowd. Watching from Vienna, Herzl understood what Pinsker had already warned: emancipation without equality is another form of captivity. Herzl built what Pinsker imagined. He turned despair into movement, organisation, and speech. Through the Zionist Congresses, he tried to make safety tangible. He pleaded with ministers and kings, searched for land across the globe that could hold both memory and survival. He even wrote to the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, for a homeland in Palestine. He refused.

Still, Herzl kept going. For him, it was not about conquest but about the right to live without permission. By 1917, when Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, Europe’s so-called “Jewish question”, a term used in European discourse to discuss the integration, segregation, or expulsion of Jews, had already revealed the sickness at its core. To Jews, it was a plea for existence. To the imperial powers, it was a strategy, another chance to extend control into the Ottoman world. One side sought a home. The other saw an opportunity. Between them, a promise was made that would change the fate of a land neither side fully understood.

Orientalism and Imperial Hubris

The Balfour Declaration was not only a promise; it was an act of power. Edward Said’s idea of Orientalism helps us see it for what it was, a colonial document disguised as moral duty. Britain spoke of creating a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, yet never paused to ask what that meant for those already living there. In its language, Palestine became an empty space waiting to be claimed, not a land of families, farmers, and memory.

The indigenous Arab population was reduced to a single phrase, “non-Jewish communities,” stripped of name, voice, and history. They were spoken about, not spoken to. It turned people into categories, presence into absence. That is the logic of Orientalism: to see the East not as a living world, but as material to be moulded by Western power and imagination. It is a way of thinking that empties lands of their people and people of their history.

British Strategic Interests and French Complicity

The arrogance that engineered the Balfour Declaration was rooted in Britain’s hunger for power. Behind its moral language lay a simple aim: control. The declaration was issued in the chaos of the First World War, when the British imperial power was fighting not only for victory but for territory. Palestine, with its trade routes and proximity to the Suez Canal, became part of a larger chessboard. The British saw the region not as a motherland for its people but as a prize to be managed.

Diplomacy and Dispossession

The Sykes-Picot treaty had already shown the pattern. Britain and France distributed the Arab world in secret, drawing borders that cut through language and kinship. These lines were not meant to unite but to divide and rule. The Balfour Declaration followed the same logic. It decided the fate of a land without asking its people. In London, it was called diplomacy. In Palestine, it became dispossession. For European Jews, it brought a fragile hope after generations of fear. They saw it as recognition, a long-awaited right to safety and belonging. For Palestinians, the same words felt like a sentence. Their land was discussed in foreign rooms, their future sealed in other people’s languages. What gave one people deliverance took away another’s birthplace. From that moment came a century of struggle. Two people, bound to the same soil, were caught in a story written by the colonial power.

Empire’s Shadow

The promise made to the Zionists through the Balfour Declaration exposed a truth that the imperial power could never admit. Western powers spoke of liberty while deciding who was human enough to deserve it. Their idea of freedom had borders. Beyond Europe, it turned into permission: granted, withdrawn, and traded according to interest. In that imagination, Palestine was stripped of its reality. It ceased to be a land of people and became a metaphor, a stage on which Europe could perform its moral ambitions. The men who wrote the declaration did not see villages, harvests, or prayer calls at dawn. They saw space, something to be promised, parcelled, and redeemed through the colonial idea of moral duty. The Balfour Declaration was more than policy. It was philosophy turned into power, the belief that history could be rewritten without the consent of those who lived it.

The Paradox of Liberation

The result was a century of grief, exile, and resistance that still shapes the region’s every breath. Theodor Herzl’s dream began in anguish. He wanted a shelter for Jews who had none, safety after centuries of persecution. His longing was human and urgent. But like many who lived under colonial rule, he saw the world through its gaze. In The Jewish State, Herzl wrote of building a homeland that would stand as a frontier of civilisation in what he saw as a backward East. This idea mirrored the Orientalist belief that the East was lesser, waiting to be corrected by the West. Herzl used that language to win Europe’s approval, presenting Zionism as a cause aligned with the imperial project. It revealed a deeper paradox: a movement born from the search for safety, adopting the very logic that had long denied it to others. The legacy of that choice lives on. Liberation cannot grow from someone else’s domination, and no people can find peace by inheriting the instruments of colonial power.

Revisiting Said’s Themes

Edward Said’s ideas on Orientalism help reveal what lay beneath the Balfour Declaration. He showed how the colonial system justified itself by turning the East into an object of control, stripping people of voice and history so that their land could be claimed in the name of development. The declaration was one such act. It spoke the language of promise but was written in the logic of empire. Palestine and its people disappeared behind the visions of those who believed they understood the region better than those who lived in it. Through that document, Britain set two peoples on a path of collision. What began as a political statement became a century of exile, fear, and mistrust. For Palestinians, the realisation of Balfour’s promise led to the Nakba of 1948, when hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes, their lives suspended between memory and survival. That wound never closed. Today’s war in Gaza is not separate from that history. It is its continuation.

Conclusion

The legacy of the Balfour Declaration shows how imperial power reshapes entire worlds. It reminds us how Western ambitions, guided by power and wrapped in Orientalist myths about “the East,” can alter the fate of nations for generations. To confront what followed, one must begin with understanding, not slogans. Real peace requires more than diplomacy; it needs a philosophical honesty about history itself. The prejudices that shaped a century of Western policy, the habit of deciding for others, of seeing one people’s freedom as another’s threat, must be broken

Peace will only come when we step out of Balfour’s shadow. Each home destroyed leaves its trace; each life taken leaves a silence that others now carry. The wound belongs to both. Peace is not a ceremony. It is a choice made in the smallest moments: to see, to stay, to listen. When that choice is shared, the land may grow still. Not with conquest, but with recognition.

In recent months, a series of videos surfaced on Donald Trump’s social-media platform, showing what appeared to be drone footage of small vessels exploding somewhere in the Caribbean. The clips were accompanied by triumphant statements from the former president, who claimed that U.S. forces had struck “drug boats” operated by Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua cartel as they ferried narcotics toward the American coastline. Within hours of the first announcement, officials confirmed that “multiple interdictions” had taken place, that several suspected traffickers were dead, and that survivors were in custody.

For Washington, the operation was presented as a new frontier in counter-narcotics self-defense. For much of Latin America, it looked alarmingly like extrajudicial warfare. Colombia’s president protested that one of the destroyed boats had been Colombian, carrying his own citizens. Caracas called the attacks “acts of piracy.” And legal scholars, both in the United States and abroad, began to question not only the strikes’ legitimacy under international law but also who, exactly, had carried them out.

The Law of the Sea Meets the War on Drugs

The United States is not a signatory to the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, yet successive administrations have claimed to act “in a manner consistent” with its provisions. Under that framework, ships on the high seas enjoy freedom of navigation. Interference is allowed only in narrow cases such as piracy, slavery, or “hot pursuit” when a vessel flees territorial waters after violating a state’s laws. The deliberate destruction of a boat on the open ocean—without proof of an immediate threat—sits uneasily within those boundaries.

“Force can be used to stop a boat,” observed Luke Moffett of Queen’s University Belfast, “but it must be reasonable and necessary in self-defense where there is an immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life.” Nothing in the public record suggests the crews of these vessels fired upon U.S. assets. The claim of self-defense, therefore, stretches maritime law close to breaking point.

International law’s broader prohibition on the use of force, codified in Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, is equally uncompromising. Only an armed attack, or an imminent threat of one, allows a state to respond with force in self-defense. Trump’s officials insist that Tren de Aragua constitutes a transnational terrorist organization waging “irregular warfare” against the United States. Yet, as Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin argues, “Labelling traffickers ‘narco-terrorists’ does not transform them into lawful military targets. The United States is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or with this criminal organization.”

Nonetheless, a leaked memorandum reportedly informed Congress that the administration had determined the U.S. to be in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels—a remarkable claim that effectively militarizes the war on drugs. If accurate, it would mean Washington has unilaterally extended the legal geography of war to the Caribbean, with traffickers recast as enemy combatants rather than criminals.

Domestic Authority and the Elastic Presidency

The constitutional footing for these operations is no clearer. The power to declare war resides with Congress, but Article II designates the president commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Since 2001, successive presidents have leaned on the Authorization for Use of Military Force—passed in the wake of 9/11—to justify counter-terror operations across the globe. That statute, intended to target al-Qaeda and its affiliates, has been stretched from Yemen to the Sahel. Extending it to Venezuelan cartels represents another act of legal contortion.

Rumen Cholakov, a constitutional scholar at King’s College London, suggests that rebranding cartels as “narco-terrorists” may be a deliberate attempt to fold them into the AUMF’s reach. But it remains uncertain whether Congress ever envisaged such an interpretation. Nor has the White House explained whether the War Powers Resolution’s requirement of prior consultation with lawmakers was honored before the first missile struck.

The Pentagon, asked to disclose its legal rationale, declined. The opacity has fuelled speculation that the operations were not conducted solely by uniformed military forces at all, but by an entirely different arm of the American state—one that operates in deeper shadows.

The “Third Option”: Covert Power and the CIA’s Ground Branch

In October, Trump confirmed that he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to “conduct covert operations in Venezuela.” The statement was brief, but within the intelligence world it carried enormous significance. For decades, the CIA’s Special Activities Center—once known as the Special Activities Division—has been Washington’s chosen instrument for deniable action. Its paramilitary component, the Ground Branch, recruits largely from elite special-operations units and specializes in missions that the U.S. government cannot publicly own: sabotage, targeted strikes, and the training of proxy forces.

These operations fall under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, which governs intelligence activities rather than military ones. By law, the president must issue a classified “finding” declaring that the action is necessary to advance foreign-policy objectives and must notify congressional intelligence leaders. Crucially, Title 50 operations are designed so that “the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.”

That distinction—between covert and merely secret—sets Title 50 apart from the military’s Title 10 authority. Traditional special-operations forces under the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operate as uniformed combatants in overt or clandestine missions authorized under defense law. Their actions are governed by the law of armed conflict, subject to military oversight, and, at least in theory, open to public accountability. CIA paramilitaries, by contrast, function outside those rules. They wear no uniforms, deny official affiliation, and are overseen not by the Pentagon but by the White House and select members of Congress.

Since 9/11, the line separating the two worlds has blurred. Joint task forces have fused intelligence officers and military commandos under hybrid authorities, allowing presidents to act quickly and quietly without triggering the political friction of formal war powers. The “drug boat” strikes appear to be the latest iteration of that model: part counter-narcotics, part counter-terrorism, and part covert action.

A Legal Twilight Zone

If CIA paramilitary officers were indeed involved, the implications are profound. A covert maritime campaign authorized under Title 50 would have required a presidential finding and congressional notification, but those documents remain classified. Conducting lethal operations at sea through the intelligence apparatus—rather than under military or law-enforcement authority—creates a twilight zone of accountability.

The law of armed conflict applies only when a genuine armed conflict exists; human rights law governs peacetime use of force. Covert paramilitary strikes sit uneasily between the two. They may infringe the sovereignty of other states without ever triggering a formal act of war, and they obscure responsibility by design. Survivors of the October strike—a Colombian and an Ecuadorian now detained by U.S. authorities—exist in a legal limbo, neither civilian nor combatant.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, professor at Notre Dame Law School, calls the rationale “utterly unconvincing.” No credible facts, she argues, justify treating these actions as lawful self-defense. “The only relevant law for peace is international law—that is, the law of treaties, human rights, and statehood.”

The Price of Secrecy

Covert action was conceived as a tool for influence and sabotage during the Cold War, not as an instrument of maritime interdiction. Applying it to counter-narcotics missions risks collapsing the boundary between espionage and war. Oversight mechanisms designed for covert influence operations struggle to accommodate lethal paramilitary campaigns. Only a handful of legislators—the so-called “Gang of Eight”—receive full briefings, and judicial review is virtually nonexistent. In practice, the president’s signature on a secret finding becomes the sole check on executive power.

The “drug boat” operations thus reveal how the United States’ shadow-war architecture has evolved since 9/11. The Special Activities Center, once reserved for coups and clandestine support to insurgents, now appears to function as an offshore strike arm for missions the military cannot legally or politically conduct. The public framing—protecting Americans from narcotics smuggling—masks a far broader assertion of authority: the right to employ lethal force anywhere, against anyone, without declaration or disclosure.

War Without War

Trump’s supporters hail the strikes as decisive. His critics see a dangerous precedent—a campaign that bypasses Congress, ignores international law, and blurs the line between defense and vigilantism. The tension runs deeper than partisanship. It touches the central question of modern U.S. power: who decides when America is at war?

The CIA’s motto for its paramilitary wing, Tertia Optio—the “third option”—was meant to describe a choice between diplomacy and open war. Yet as that option expands into an instrument of regular policy, it threatens to eclipse both. When covert action becomes a substitute for law, secrecy replaces accountability, and deniability becomes the new face of sovereignty.

Whether these “drug boats” carried cocaine or simply unlucky sailors may never be known. What is certain is that the legal boundaries of America’s global operations are eroding at sea. The United States may claim it is defending itself; international law may call it aggression. In that unresolved space—the realm of the third option—the world’s most powerful democracy is waging a war it will not name.

WASHINGTON — The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Trump said on Tuesday.

Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed, Trump said in a social media post. It’s the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump’s administration has asserted it’s treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike Tuesday morning, said Trump, who released a video of it, as he had in the past. Hegseth later shared the video in a post on X.

Trump said the strike was conducted in international waters and “Intelligence” confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with “narcoterrorist networks” and was on a known drug trafficking route.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking more information on the latest boat strike.

Frustration with the Trump administration has been growing on Capitol Hill among members of both major political parties. Some Republicans are seeking more information from the White House on the legal justification and details of the strikes. Democrats contend the strikes violate U.S. and international law.

The Senate last week voted on a war powers resolution that would have barred the Trump administration from conducting the strikes unless Congress specifically authorized them, but it failed to pass.

In a memo to Congress that was obtained by The Associated Press, the Trump administration said it had “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations” and that Trump directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.”

The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats targeted by the U.S. military in a series of fatal strikes were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The strikes followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces in the Caribbean unlike any seen in recent times.

Last week, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino told military leaders that the U.S. government knows the drug-trafficking accusations used to support the recent actions in the Caribbean are false, with its true intent being to “force a regime change” in the South American country.

He added that the Venezuelan government does not see the deployment of the U.S. warships as a mere “propaganda-like action” and warned of a possible escalation.

“I want to warn the population: We have to prepare ourselves because the irrationality with which the U.S. empire operates is not normal,” Padrino said during the televised gathering. “It’s anti-political, anti-human, warmongering, rude, and vulgar.”

Price and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.

What is international legitimacy?

States have always needed to guarantee their existence and sovereignty; law and security became, therefore, the key to power dynamics in international relations. As the survival of the states has depended directly on the proper handling of their interrelationship, the international stage soon prevailed over the internal one as the reason for their existence.

The international society, anarchic by nature, has never allowed a previous binding legal order or even the ruling of a central authority. This amorphous and pulverized society has demanded from states the set of strategies aimed at the prevailing of its force in the world system, and due to various standards of expression and capacity they own, some states have used its legitimacy as a way of equating their place in the world and signing their international insertion.

If the international theatre is anarchic, the reasons of state are consequently selfish; nations have been conducting their mutual relations according to the customs originating from the accommodation of power. Paradoxically, a dialectic between sovereignties and the progressive interdependence of nations emerged as a phenomenon that has evinced the potential of international socialization, as well as the existence of a minimum coexisting ruled world community.

Considering that the international legal order is sovereignty-based and that there are no transcendent values—not even peace, justice, and equity—that can affirm its basic rule, interstate relations depend on intricate power and policy games.

Sovereign legal orders aimed at self-defense and security strategies have put in check the legal formalism in favor of realism in international society. This is the main characteristic of the international order that makes it entirely different from the internal one: the prevailing of policy over law. No matter how a domestic legal order forces political struggles, there will always be a founding rule that provides the state legal validity and a minimal government structure, with vertical authority, that enables the subsistence of its society.

On the other hand, international order, even surrounded by world organizations, law, and treaties, can’t do without policy, precisely because of being anarchic, horizontal, amorphous, and unequal. So, for prevailing in the strongly political world theater, states have to use something beyond pure international legal elements as a non-conventional way of equating power—authority, or rather, legitimacy.

This is not an easy task. The concept of international legitimacy is nebulous itself, as it gravitates beyond the borders of morality, ideology, and law, and it can simply be defined as a sort of moral acceptability that justifies states’ authority. Neither diplomacy nor international law can provide sufficient elements or concepts for defining it.

2. Why do nations need international legitimacy?

The friction between power and law is what moves interstate relationships, and it is responsible for encouraging states’ constant dissatisfaction concerning the international system status quo. Decolonization in Africa and Asia, the non-aligned movement, and the third-world onslaught against the international financial system are all phenomena that emphasize this friction.

Even the assumption of stability in the international system and its binding rules can’t mitigate the effects of the friction between power and law. Sovereignty remains the pillar of world relations rather than international law. States don’t abide by rules unless it seems convenient, helpful, and adaptable to their strategic geopolitical calculation.

The international society is a very heterogeneous environment in terms of power and capacities. Consent—and not consensus—is what moves interstate relationship structure, marked by an absolutely unequal distribution of power, which leads to its cyclical freeze and to the legitimacy crisis of hegemonic states.

Whether hegemonic or peripheral, states depend on the consent of the others to achieve their strategic aims. Tradition, besides consent, also aggregates nations, and this is why the international law itself is based on a tradition derived from natural law. It is no coincidence that nations handle their diplomatic strategies of insertion and chase for consent using their reasons of state—the real meaning of their political traditions.

The U.S. molded its political tradition and the basis of its international legitimacy on hegemonic leadership. The relations of power between the U.S. and the rest of the world have always followed this premise, but President Trump’s recent actions are undermining the consent achieved by Washington, as well as its own international insertion. He seems to ignore the fact that, like any other nation, the U.S. depends on the consent of the world community to keep its leadership role.

3. Hegemony: the U.S. international insertion

Since its very early years the U.S. reason of state was forged in a biblical and messianic character based on Puritanism. The resulting collective consciousness led the Americans towards expansionism in their own territory and afterwards to international hegemony.

The U.S. arrogated to itself a leading role in the world on behalf of a supposedly elevated social order, responsible for conducting progress and democracy wherever needed. Based on the idea that the U.S. was divinely ordained to preserve the unequivocal rights given to men by God—equality, liberty, life, and happiness—and to promote democracy ideals, the world consented to the Manifest Destiny Doctrine, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Roosevelt Corollary as acceptable sources of Washington’s international legitimacy.

European countries, which had long resisted American initiatives in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific, now accepted Washington’s supremacy. The world wars gradually affirmed the international community’s consent to U.S. authority, side by side with the Soviet Union during the bipolar era, and now as a hegemonic nation struggling for world power with earlier peripheral China.

The U.S. hegemonic legitimacy would not have survived the Cold War if it wasn’t for the consent derived from Washington’s objective behavior and respect for formal institutions like NATO, the Security Council of the U.N., or even the accepted currency in the world’s financial system.

Above consent, the West block nourished the belief that the policy of the U.S. really supported free peoples who were resisting attempted subjugation by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Both the Truman and Eisenhower Doctrines gained authority by the acceptance of half of the world, and this consolidated U.S. leadership in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle and Far East.

Reagan’s patient determination on reversing the course of American policy abroad by strengthening Washington’s defenses and recapturing world supremacy from Moscow was rewarded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. entered uncharted territory, as it meant the end of the divided world legitimacy shared hitherto with the Soviet Union.

During the Cold War, the U.S. could cite the threat of Soviet retaliation as a reason to avoid intervening in the affairs of other countries. With that threat gone, American leaders, facing an unprecedented responsibility, would have to weigh each prospective intervention on its own merits.

If one country attacked another, should the U.S. defend the victim? If the government of a country oppressed its own people, should the U.S. move to stop the oppression? These questions—and the answers American presidents gave to them—would reshape U.S. international legitimacy and its further foreign policy, as well as the world order itself.

As the only superpower still standing, the U.S. power could not preserve American strategists from having to make difficult decisions about how to use such resources. Inheriting the chaos left by the breakup of the Soviet Union, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden outlined a “new world order” based in the general and accepted principle of deterring international aggression.

American unilateralism, strongly endorsed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, made the world accept fully the “global policeman” role the U.S. had been playing since the 1991 invasion of Iraq. In playing the role of “world cop,” strategists and advisers of both Republican and Democratic presidents asserted the right to the preventive use of force.

In other words, the U.S., far stronger militarily and economically than any other nation, played its role as supporter or final arbiter of most international disputes. Iraq, Kosovo, Serbia, the Middle East, Somalia, and Ukraine have all faced direct or indirect interventions by the U.S. by reference to international law or, last but not least, to the world’s same wavelength.

President Donald Trump seems to despise the highly interventionist and hegemonic legacy that the U.S. accumulated in the last 30 years—in his view a heavy and useless burden that Washington should no longer support—as well as the eighty-year-old world order and the international law system itself.

4. Trump’s will: a new world order?

Conceiving the world as a dynamic, integrated system has always meant the difference between success and failure in the decisions and actions of great leaders throughout history.

Once reappointed for another term in the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump was granted the opportunity of choosing between success and failure. Surprisingly, it looks like he has chosen to face the world not in a global manner, as a wise statesman, but from an absolutely anarchic, fickle, and irregular point of view.

This is an equivocal perspective: the three-century successful premise based on the opposition between the internal order and the international anarchy can’t find support in the present world. Although the international order is anarchic, some institutional, behavioral, and subjective elements that shape regular empirical situations come from it.

Modern international law, unlike its formalist classical matrix, aims to shape social reality, not only on the global scale but also at the core of the states. The present organization of the international system has to do with both the power and interest of the wealthier nations and the peripheral ones’ sense of security and belonging to the international community.

In general, nations yearn for sovereignty, formal equality, human rights, economic development, stable commerce, and a healthy environment. In a nutshell, both peripheral and powerful states yearn for stability in world order, and the hegemonic ones are even more interested in promoting it. Besides being the main beneficiaries of the world order stability, they also have enormous influence on shaping the content of international rules and strengthening global organizations.

Thus, it’s quite impossible to conceive a project of a new world order under Trump’s actions. His strategic equivocation is evident: instead of maintaining the U.S. leadership, the measures of international disaggregation so far are undermining Washington’s legitimacy.

The international community expects the USA to be the USA. Despite the emergence of Russia, China, and the Global South as alternative centers of power, the world still expects genuine leadership from Washington, and this role requires the acceptance of predictable patterns in states’ relationships that only global governance shaped by international law and systemic persistence can provide.

Denying the international system is definitely not the way to improve a new world order, and it will result exactly in the opposite of Trump’s objective—“make America great again”—insofar as the U.S.’s global leadership depends on its strategic insertion into the global regime.

5. The U.S.’s international legitimacy towards deterioration

While Washington is stepping back, Beijing is reinforcing its global insertion and searching constantly for the international community’s consent and for a global leadership role. The Chinese strategists and advisers are fully aware that the observance of international law and the pursuit of the world’s consent are the keys to consistent international legitimacy.

In the daily routine of international system life, large numbers of agreements and customs are complied with. However, the need is felt in the hectic interplay of world affairs for some kind of regulatory framework or rules network within which the game can be played, and international law fulfills that requirement. States feel this necessity because it imports an element of stability and predictability into the situation.

As nations are usually involved in disagreements or disputes, it is handy to have recourse to the rules of international law since at least there is a common frame of reference—a mutually understandable vocabulary book that suggests possible solutions.

The element of reciprocity at work acts as a powerful weapon of gathering and forbearance among nations. States quite often do not pursue one particular course of action that might bring them short-term gains because it could disrupt the mesh of reciprocal tolerance, which could very well bring long-term disadvantages. This constitutes an inducement to states to act reasonably and moderate demands in the expectation that this will similarly encourage other states to act reasonably and so avoid confrontations.

Observing the international law and behaving according to the world system by mutual agreement is the path to improve international legitimacy and to influence and to alter law patterns or customs in the international community.

International legitimacy and international law—and not morality, ethics, or even political mottos—are the elements directly used by states for pursuing their strategic objectives and claims.

“Making America great again” is an empty political motto that definitely can’t subsidize American international legitimacy. Behaving objectively, but diplomatically, in terms of power and showing respect for formal world institutions was surely the way the U.S. forged its supremacy and conquered the consent of the international community.

What made America “great” was precisely its reason of state, based on the tradition of hegemonic leadership. American strategists have always known how to make Washington’s authority and legitimacy prevail over the intricate power and policy games and over the expectations of the coexisting world community.

American legitimacy could even resist the last 30 years of unilateralism and preventive use of force, when the world community fully questioned U.S. leadership, because the strategists and advisers of Washington have never forgotten the need for world socialization and the existence of a ruled world system.

Trump’s foreign policy, contrary to the Chinese or Russian ones, ignores that the consent of the world community is essential for a nation to keep its leadership role and that the world order won’t forgo stability and its institutional and behavioral elements.

The world is a dynamic integrated system that shapes social reality at the core of the states. Trump’s stubbornness in the brutal opposition between the internal and the international order, and in finding enemies everywhere, even among traditional friends, will surely lead the U.S. legitimacy towards deterioration, besides putting the country against the Earth.

The two foreign ministers presented their argument in the letter directed at EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas. They contended that the EU should impose carefully planned sanctions on Israeli government ministers and settlers of the West Bank. In addition, they demanded simultaneously new sanctions against the Hamas leadership in Gaza. The letter was dated August 27. It called on the EU to act fast. The ministers emphasized that restrictions should be imposed on those people who will encourage illegal settlement activity. Moreover, they further cautioned that ministers who act against a two-state solution need to be held answerable.

The West Bank, which is left in a state of occupation, has seen Israelis perpetrating recurrent incursions against the Palestinians. Maria Malmer Stenergard, the Swedish Foreign Minister, has been talking about it for months. She has called for sanctions on far-right Israeli cabinet officials since May. A big number of them advocate apparent annexation of Palestinian territory. This was announced by Stenergard on Thursday in Swedish public radio:sanctions need to cause such ministers to face difficulties. Her words emphasize an augmented annoyance of the situation in Europe as Israel continues to advance settlements.

The Dutch standing too has become hard. But action was postponed by internal quibbling. Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp quit last week. He was unable to give national sanctions against Israel through his cabinet. He was recently superseded by Ruben Brekelmans, who co-signed the new letter.

The ministers went further. They insisted on cessation of the commercial part of the EU-Israel association deal. However, free trade in many areas such as agriculture and industry is allowed in this agreement. Falling victim to cutting off this benefit would cost Israel extremely economically. Over the years, opponents have claimed that Israel cannot be provided with preferential trade access as it continues to expand settlements on the occupied territory. Conserving this, the Swedish and Dutch ministers now want to make that argument into policy.

In the letter, the focus is not solely on Israel. The EU foreign services are required to present additional propositions to pressurize Hamas. The organization already managing the Gaza Strip is declared as a terrorist organization by the EU and a few of the Western states.

Nevertheless, the ministers insist there is still a need for further sanctions. They are worried that Hamas continues being an important factor in the struggle. They would like to add an additional stress layer by attacking the political hierarchy of Hamas.

Furthermore, the position adopted by Pakistan is unambiguous. Pakistan identifies with the entire community of states that champion humanity, justice, and long-term peace. The foreign policy has stood firmly behind the Palestinian cause, and the country has made numerous demands for a fair and peaceful resolution of the conflict. It is the country’s position that all countries should respect international law as well as humanitarianism. Besides, to assert this is the moral duty of the world community to act firmly for the innocent civilians that are being killed and starved.

The appeal of Pakistan to the EU to act immediately and in unison is by itself essential. It is said to be essential to this move to prevent constantly recurring atrocities and implement international humanitarian law. Pakistan also sincerely requests the EU to follow the appeal concerted by Sweden and the Netherlands. The era of contemplation is over; the call to act is on.

The timing of the letter is not random. There was an official announcement of famine in Gaza by the United Nations on Friday. The UN accuses Israel of what it terms systematic defiance on the facilitation of aid. The crisis is the result of over 22 months of war that led to considerable loss of civilian lives and the destruction of many properties.

The humanitarian catastrophe has brought the appeal for more forceful steps in Europe. It has been said that assistance cannot be delivered to the needy without pressure on Israel by the politicians. Others think that the strategies of Hamas also extend the suffering.

The problem this time will be brought to the EU foreign ministers on Saturday. Proposals will be debated there by the member states. The extent to which Sweden and the Netherlands will collect support is not certain. There are those governments in the EU that like conservative diplomacy. Others fear that quotas might carve up relationships with Israel or with the United States. Yet momentum is building. Notably, the urgency has been introduced through the famine declaration.

In the EU, Sweden and the Netherlands have frequently been active participants in Middle East debates. Their last move indicates that they are ready to go to greater extremes. Accountability of settlement expansion, in the case of Stenergard, is the question. In the case of Brekelmans, it is the policies of Israel as well as the activities of Hamas.

The way they did things reflects a broader European trend. Greater information is frustrating governments that the peace process is not forthcoming. Settlement expansion is seen by many as the greatest barrier to a two-state solution. It is also claimed by others that diplomacy is compromised by the constant attacks by Hamas.

Despite these cries, the EU has internal cracks. Such nations as Germany and Hungary have always feared sanctioning Israel. France and Spain have assumed more hardline stances, but they are also wary of trade measures. Getting consensus will not come easy.

Nevertheless, the Swedish Akademisk holändsk Bulletin is a telling sign. The pressure on Israel no longer remains a fringe concept in the EU. It is entering into mainstream debate. This is in the wake of United States and Israel negotiations on post-war Gaza. Washington has called on restraint, yet it is on the side of Israel militarily. On the same day, Tel Aviv reported that a complete evacuation of Gaza City is inevitable. These trends make EU decisions more important. The sanctions would become a landmark should they be passed. The Israeli settlement policy has received many criticisms from the EU, but very few measures have been taken by the body. The most powerful thing that could be done, however, is to suspend the trade deal.

The Netherlands and Sweden have gone bold. Their open letter to Kaja Kallas asks to target sanctions against violent settlers and monopolist Israeli ministers. It also requires additional actions against the political leadership of Hamas. Also, they desire that the EU-Israel trade agreement be suspended.

The proposals come at a time when Gaza struggles with famine and when the war will turn 23 months old. The EU foreign ministers meeting in Copenhagen will debate the issue. The result may remodel the policy of Europe in the Middle East. Somehow the sanctions may pass or not pass, but one thing is evident. Increasing pressure is within the EU. The humanitarian crisis and the continuing conflict are moving governments to action. With the strikes by Sweden and the Netherlands, the issue of sanctions now rests squarely on the European stage.

It’s been more than 2,000 days since Covid-19 appeared in late 2019 growing to more than 700 million cases and at least 7 million deaths globally. Like many other people who were infected by Covid-19, I have long thought about its origins and where we go next.

As someone who had been a lawyer admitted to practice before the Supreme Courts of the US, New York and Massachusetts, and as chief legal counsel of President Jimmy Carter’s White House Conference on Families, looking at Covid-19 from an international law perspective by the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it’s clear to me that no country has proven where the disease originated.

Under international law the principle of onus probandi,serious matters like lethal modalities such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or allegations of lethal pathogenic origins require the highest standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. It is also why the complaining party, not the accused, that bears the burden of proof.

That’s also why the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens explicitly requires the proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” gold standard, not the lower “preponderance of the evidence” test that something is merely more likely true than not. And it’s why the WHO panel operates under the legal principle of in dubio pro reo, a presumption of innocence until the accusing party proves otherwise.

Applying these standards, the required burden of proof level has not been met in even one case as the US and some allies have falsely accused Wuhan as being the origin of Covid-19.

China, in fact met its primary obligations under the WHO International Health Regulations, including timely notification to WHO of unusual pneumonia cases in December, 2019; sharing viral genome sequencing with WHO in December, 2019; and facilitating the WHO-China joint investigation during 2021.

I also find it unpersuasive that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” test was met since there were multiple independent reports, including wastewater and antibody blood testing of varying levels of credibility, of Covid-19  being present in Europe and the Americas prior to December 1, 2019. Since there is substantial evidence that Covid-19 appeared earlier on in numerous venues far beyond China, it has to be a case of “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. For example, consider:

In Italy, multiple studies based on the presence of antibodies in blood samples found Covid-19 as early as October, 2019.

In France, the analysis of thousands of blood samples detected Covid-19 antibodies in 13 cases from November, 2019 to January, 2020.

In the Americas, signs of Covid-19 based on the presence of antibodies in blood samples were found in Brazil in November, 2019 and in the US in early December, 2019.

To me, however, the most convincing evidence is that after so much time has passed and so much money has been expended, no Western intelligence agency has been able to find Covid-19s origin with a high level of confidence; therefore not “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Beginning with 2020, without the legal proof threshold being met, a handful of lawsuits outside the US, were filed against China over Covid-19 . All have been unsuccessful. In the US, a greater number of cases yielded only two Pyrric victories among numerous defeats whose massive judgments in cases that are mere political theater, clogged an understaffed, overburdened  judicial system, but not one cent will ever be collected because under international law, these judgments will be uncollectable. There are several reasons for these disparities.

Legally, other nations have more respect for the longstanding doctrine of sovereign immunity governing one nation or its political subdivisions suing another. Consequently, such cases are also more difficult to file there.  The doctrine, which must be music to Donald Trump’s ears, can be traced back to the English common law doctrine: rex non potest peccare or “the king can do no wrong”.

The US is the most litigious country globally, having the highest number of cases filed annually. One of the reasons is an unusual feature of the American legal system that allows litigants to bring cases without paying their lawyer, unless their lawyers are successful, in which case the lawyers take a negotiated percentage of the judgment, usually upwards of 40%.

From the 1990s, The US had been more politically divided. As part of this trend, American views on China were negatively affected and have severely deteriorated, accelerated by Covid-19. For example, Gallup found that about 41% of American had a favorable view of China in February, 2019, but by 2023 this number fell to 15%. Putting these facts together, it’s no surprise that the US has been the ground zero for quixotic  lawsuits seeking damages for Covid19.

US courts are governed by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act which accords foreign states broad immunity from lawsuits in US courts with several seemingly narrow exceptions. China, however, adheres to the principle of absolute sovereign immunity, and does not recognize the exceptions and abstains from appearing in US courts.

The exceptions, however, encouraged the conservative attorneys-general of red states Missouri and Mississippi to sue China. They were fully aware of China’s position and the futility of obtaining damages, beyond performing a political theater of the absurd that would further gum up an already understaffed judicial system.

Both officials belong to the National Association of Attorney Generals, which we jokingly call “National Association of Aspiring Governors” and both used the suits to waste taxpayers money to further their political careers, and in the case of the Missouri A-G, to help him become US senator.

The “justice is blind” mantra, at least in the case of Missouri, also fall on deaf ears. The 2-1 decision that turned on the narrow exceptions, smacks of political bias. At least one of the two judges allowing the exceptions to hold against China, perhaps both, should have recused themselves to avoid an appearance of impropriety; each was a Trump-appointee.

Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., who wrote the majority opinion is first cousin of the notorious extreme right media commentator Rush Limbaugh. The latter, with an audience of more than 15 million, had said that “the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another weapon to bring down Donald Trump and it probably is a ChiCom (Chinese Communist) laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized”. Judge Limbaugh had an unambiguous moral duty to recuse himself. but didn’t.

The cases have many flaws but I agree with the dissent in the Missouri case, written by the Chief Judge, not a Trump-appointee, that the exceptions did not apply to China.

The Covid-19 nightmare may be over but other pathogens with pandemic potential are literally waiting in the wings. Last year there were 17 global disease outbreaks, including Marburg virus. Mpox and H5N1 bird flu.

Experts warn that there is a 40 to 53% likelihood of another serious pandemic within 25 years.

Trump has already slashed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget from $9.3 to 4.2 billion in 2026. At the same time WHO will (again) lose its largest contributor next year per orders of President Trump to the tune of $500 million to $1.3 billion. Combined, this will cripple the UN body and severely weaken global health surveillance, especially neutering WHOs Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network that relies heavily on American data-sharing and technical support. Trump has even forbidden the remaining experts who weren’t fired from the CDC, from co-authoring scientific papers with WHO staff.

Sadly, like the CDC. the WHO itself is destined to be in poor health, and may suffer terminal decline, causing needless deaths at home and abroad if the US continues down its selfish path. This churlish US action will undoubtedly severely increase the more than 14 million deaths forecast globally by 2030 as a consequence of savage 83% budget cuts to the US Agency for International Development and related US foreign aid programs.

China will assuredly pick up some of the slack, especially via its Belt and Road Initiative and its Health Silk Road but cannot unilaterally restore funding to previous levels. Other nations hopefully can pick up some of the shortfall.

Under international law, we may never know where Covid-19 came from. However, If we don’t want the past to be prologue and if we don’t follow philosopher George Santayana’s wise advice that those who don’t learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them, we must prepare our new multipolar world for the health and other shocks that await us.

As the Democratic Party searches for direction in the post-2024 landscape, its leaders seem bent on alienating their own base over Gaza. This is not a matter of nuance or tactical positioning; it’s a profound moral and political miscalculation.

That failure is on vivid display in the decision by House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Redlands) to help lead a delegation of mostly freshman Democratic representatives recently to Israel. The trip included meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption in Israel and is the subject of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Polling makes the disconnect impossible to ignore. In July, Gallup found that just 8% of Democrats approve of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, with disapproval overwhelming. Pew Research Center reported in April that 69% of Democrats now hold an unfavorable view of Israel — a striking shift from just a few years ago. And Data for Progress has consistently found supermajority Democratic support for a permanent ceasefire; in May 2024, 83% of Democrats backed a permanent ceasefire, and in a June 12, 2024, poll a majority of Democrats said they believed Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza.

Aguilar’s role makes this especially galling. He isn’t a backbencher; he’s a high-ranking member of the Democratic Party leadership. That gives him a particular responsibility to model principled conduct for newer members. Instead, he’s showing them the wrong lesson: that obedience to the donor class matters more than representing constituents. The point is underscored by his fundraising: OpenSecrets reports Aguilar received about $678,000 from donors categorized as “Pro-Israel” in the 2023–24 cycle.

The mechanics of that influence are no mystery. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and allied pro-Israel PACs reward loyalty with torrents of campaign cash and punish dissent with lavishly funded primary challenges. Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush — both outspoken critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza — have been textbook examples: Bowman was unseated after record outside spending flooded his race, and Bush faced a barrage of super-PAC money that ultimately toppled her. The incentive structure is clear: Toe the line and your coffers swell; cross it and a financial juggernaut rolls over you.

There is a political price for complying with this pressure, however. The Institute for Middle East Understanding, using YouGov, found that among voters who backed Joe Biden in 2020 but chose someone else in 2024 “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top issue for 29% nationally — ahead of the economy — and 20% in battleground states. Those results point to a straightforward conclusion: Ignoring Democratic voters on Gaza depresses enthusiasm and peels away enough support to matter in close races.

Gaza is politically damaging not only because of the issue itself — though the moral stakes could hardly be higher — but also because it has become a measure of where leaders’ loyalties lie. Voters read it as a test of whether their representatives will stand with the people who elected them or with wealthy donors and foreign lobbies. Fail that test and many will assume you might betray them on other critical issues in the future.

The Democratic leadership’s unwillingness to adapt is not just bad politics; it’s a betrayal of basic democratic principles. Rank-and-file Democrats overwhelmingly want an end to the carnage, an end to unconditional military aid to Israel, and policies rooted in human rights and international law. Yet too many leaders seem more concerned with keeping favor in donor circles than with honoring the public’s will.

If Democrats hope to retain their coalition, they need to realign policy with their voters’ values: call for a permanent ceasefire; condition U.S. military assistance on compliance with international law; and replace photo-op delegations with diplomacy that centers on justice and accountability.

Until then, every AIPAC-sponsored trip led by a party leader will read like a declaration of priorities — and a reminder of the price the party will continue to pay at the ballot box.

George Bisharat is a professor emeritus at UC Law San Francisco and a longtime commentator on U.S. policy toward the Middle East.

As tensions escalate between Iran and its Western adversaries, the Iranian government is now considering one of the most consequential diplomatic withdrawals in contemporary arms control history: the potential abandonment of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). This decision, should it materialize, would not merely represent a legal realignment of Iran’s international obligations but would constitute a seismic strategic maneuver—disrupting the global nonproliferation architecture, reshaping diplomatic alliances, and accelerating the regional arms race in a Middle East already teetering under the weight of protracted conflict and fractured diplomacy.

Established in 1970, the NPT rests on three foundational pillars: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, facilitating the peaceful use of nuclear technology, and promoting disarmament. Iran’s current commitment to the treaty has remained, at least in formal terms, one of the last remaining legal barriers preventing its open development of nuclear weapons. As of 2025, 191 states remain parties to the NPT, making it the most widely adopted arms control agreement in human history. However, should Iran exit, the symbolic and material damage to this institutional cornerstone may extend well beyond the region.

From a strategic standpoint, Iran’s withdrawal would signal a clear departure from what Jacques E.C. Hymans in Achieving Nuclear Ambitions (2017) characterizes as “nuclear latency”—the state of possessing technological capability without crossing the threshold. Until now, Iran has carefully danced on the periphery of weapons capability, maintaining plausible deniability while accumulating enriched uranium and advanced centrifuge design. Abandoning the NPT, however, would mark an irreversible step from latency to overt preparation, thereby dismantling the carefully curated ambiguity that has served as both shield and sword in Tehran’s nuclear diplomacy.

The political ramifications of this decision are likely to be equally profound. In Nuclear Politics (2017) by Alexandre Debs and Nuno Monteiro, the authors argue that nuclear proliferation is inherently political—tied not only to the technological constraints of a state but also to its perception of existential threat and diplomatic isolation. With the recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, Tehran’s calculus has dramatically shifted. The strikes may have paradoxically accelerated the very outcome they purported to prevent, legitimizing within Iran a discourse of resistance that views nuclear armament not as an offensive ambition, but as a necessary deterrent in an anarchic international system.

On the diplomatic front, Iran’s departure would further erode the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organization charged with verification and monitoring under the NPT. As explained in Maria Rost Rublee’s Nonproliferation Norms (2017), much of the success of nonproliferation hinges on normative adherence, not merely technical inspections. Should Iran expel inspectors and cease all cooperation with the IAEA—as is anticipated in the wake of withdrawal—other states disillusioned with Western double standards may reconsider the utility of remaining bound by a treaty perceived as discriminatory and selectively enforced.

The security implications are perhaps most destabilizing. Mark Fitzpatrick, a noted arms control expert, argues that such a move would remove Iran’s final legal constraints and free it to pursue weaponization openly. Already, Iran is believed to possess over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity, technically just short of the 90% required for a weapon. With the infrastructure for advanced enrichment in place and a cadre of nuclear scientists—despite the assassination of several key figures by Israeli operations—still intact, Fitzpatrick warns that Iran could feasibly complete a weapons program within a year. This timeline finds corroboration in Jeffrey Lewis’ The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States (2018), which, while fictionalized, illustrates how rapidly a state with the technical base and political will can escalate from enrichment to deployment.

Moreover, Iran’s exit from the NPT would not exist in isolation. The regional fallout, especially in terms of proliferation contagion, cannot be overstated. As noted in Shashank Joshi’s The Future of Nuclear Deterrence (2020), the exit of one state from the global arms control regime often triggers anxieties in others, particularly those with existing rivalries. Saudi Arabia has already pledged to match Iran’s nuclear capabilities should it proceed toward weaponization, and Egypt, long aggrieved by Israel’s undeclared arsenal and exemption from NPT scrutiny, may see an opportunity to challenge the status quo. The fragile balance of deterrence across the Middle East could thus collapse into a cascade of armament and instability.

The global normative order also stands at risk. If the U.S.—itself a founding signatory of the NPT—can target another signatory’s nuclear infrastructure without consequence, and if the IAEA proves unable to enforce compliance or prevent escalation, then the treaty’s legitimacy may begin to unravel. As articulated in Fiona Cunningham’s Nuclear Norms in East Asia (2021), international regimes rely not merely on legal instruments but on perceived fairness and reciprocity. The perception that the NPT regime disproportionately penalizes non-Western states while tolerating exceptions for allies—such as Israel or India—could hasten a broader exodus from the treaty.

Russia’s role as a potential counterbalance on the diplomatic chessboard must also be considered. While Moscow remains a signatory of the NPT and is unlikely to openly assist Iran in developing a nuclear weapon, its alignment with Tehran in international forums—especially at the United Nations Security Council—could serve as a strategic shield against renewed sanctions or enforcement actions. This maneuvering resembles the patterns described in Andrew Futter’s Hacking the Bomb (2018), which explores how nuclear power is now shaped as much by information warfare and diplomatic alliance as by kilotons and centrifuges.

Finally, there is the matter of strategic miscalculation. Should Iran proceed with weaponization and Israel respond with preemptive strikes—potentially supported again by U.S. tactical operations—the possibility of a full-scale regional war would no longer be hypothetical. As Caitlin Talmadge notes in The Dictator’s Army (2017), nuclear breakout scenarios often escalate not through deliberate choice, but through misinterpretation, miscommunication, and the psychology of brinkmanship. Each step away from treaty obligations narrows the window for de-escalation and expands the risk of unintended catastrophe.

In conclusion, Iran’s threatened withdrawal from the NPT represents not merely a response to recent attacks but a profound inflection point in international security architecture. The unraveling of treaty commitments, the weakening of normative frameworks, and the potential for cascading proliferation across the Middle East suggest that the cost of unilateral coercive diplomacy may be greater than the strategic benefits it purports to yield. The global community stands at a precipice, where the pursuit of short-term tactical gains may irreparably fracture the long-standing scaffolding of nuclear restraint.

The image of Donald Trump shaking hands with Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria’s current leader, in Riyadh is one that, until recently, would have seemed unimaginable. Al-Sharaa, once on the U.S. most-wanted list with a $10 million bounty for information leading to his capture, now stood alongside Trump to discuss Syria’s future. This meeting, along with Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria, raises a fundamental question: Is America’s war on terror a principled, genuine fight—or a tool serving Washington’s shifting political interests?

A Puzzling Encounter
Trump’s meeting with Ahmad al-Sharaa during his highly publicized Middle East tour sparked regional and global astonishment. Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, was the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, a group the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 2013, offering $10 million for information on him. Following the meeting, Trump announced plans to normalize relations with Syria’s new government and lift sanctions, calling it an opportunity for a “fresh start” for the war-torn nation. This shift stands in stark contrast to the 2013 U.S. stance, when Jabhat al-Nusra was a prime target in the global war on terror.

The White House defended this move as pragmatic, citing al-Sharaa’s role in toppling Bashar al-Assad and his apparent moderation as the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebranding intended to distance the group from its al-Qaeda past. Yet the image of Trump shaking hands with a former most-wanted figure—especially in light of past U.S. actions—was deeply unsettling.

The Soleimani Paradox: A Tale of Selective Justice
To understand the implications of Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa, we must revisit the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force. Soleimani played a central role in fighting ISIS, particularly in Iraq and Syria, where his forces aided local militias in retaking territory. Despite this alignment with U.S. priorities, the Trump administration ordered his assassination via drone strike in Baghdad, justifying it by citing his support for groups like Hezbollah and alleged threats to U.S. interests.

The contrast is stark: Soleimani, who battled ISIS and extremist groups, was killed; al-Sharaa, once the head of an al-Qaeda affiliate, is now a diplomatic partner. This contradiction suggests that U.S. counterterrorism policy is less about eliminating extremism and more about advancing strategic interests. Soleimani’s death disrupted Iran’s regional influence—a long-standing U.S. objective—while al-Sharaa’s new role aligns with Washington’s aim to stabilize post-Assad Syria without direct military involvement.

A History of Convenient Alliances
Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa is not an anomaly but part of a broader pattern in U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets—some of whom, like Osama bin Laden, later formed al-Qaeda. In the 1980s, Washington backed Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, despite his clear record of atrocities, because Iraq served as a counterweight to Tehran.

In 2025, Trump’s Middle East strategy mirrors this tradition. His visit to Saudi Arabia—where he signed a $142 billion arms deal and emphasized confronting Iran—underscored a focus on strengthening allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel while selectively engaging former foes like al-Sharaa. The lifting of sanctions and talk of normalization signal a pragmatic shift, prioritizing stability and economic opportunity over old terrorist designations. This realpolitik approach aligns with Trump’s deal-making rhetoric, such as his readiness to negotiate with Iran—if it abandoned its nuclear ambitions and support for “terrorism”—even while threatening “maximum pressure.”

The Mask Slips from the War on Terror
America’s war on terror, launched after 9/11, has long been portrayed as a moral struggle against extremism. But the meeting with al-Sharaa exposes its instrumental nature. By engaging with a former terrorist leader, the U.S. reveals that its “terrorist” labels are often temporary, shifting when political or economic interests arise. Trump’s handshake with al-Sharaa sends a message to regional players: the U.S. is willing to overlook past crimes for strategic gain—a signal that may encourage other groups to pursue legitimacy through cosmetic political changes.

By contrast, the assassination of Soleimani shows the other side of that coin. His killing wasn’t just about counterterrorism—it was a strategic blow to Iran, a regional rival. Soleimani’s forces played a key role in defeating ISIS in Iraq, yet the terrorist label overshadowed his contributions to a shared objective.

A Policy of Expedience
The photo of Donald Trump shaking hands with Ahmad al-Sharaa is more than just a diplomatic snapshot—it’s a window into the dual nature of America’s counterterrorism policy. When a former al-Qaeda commander is embraced as a partner, but a general who fought ISIS is eliminated by U.S. drones, the message is clear: terrorism is a label used for convenience, not conviction. It reveals a truth the West rarely admits—principles become negotiable when interests are at stake.

As the Middle East enters a new chapter, the world watches and wonders: Is America’s war on extremism truly about security—or just another move in a geopolitical chess game for regional and global dominance?

The Moroccan autonomy proposal, which has been advanced as a “realistic” solution to the Western Sahara conflict, reflects a deeply flawed understanding of international law, decolonization, and regional stability. Far from offering a genuine path to peace, the autonomy plan is a strategic repackaging of occupation that violates the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and undermines the very foundations of international order.

The Moroccan autonomy proposal is premised on denying the Sahrawi people their inalienable right to self-determination. This right is not aspirational—it is enshrined in international law, including the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV), which mandates the immediate and unconditional end of colonialism. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its 1975 advisory opinion, found no legal ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Western Sahara, reinforcing the principle that sovereignty must be decided by the people of the territory, not imposed by external actors.

Even on its own terms, Morocco’s proposed autonomy lacks credibility. In Morocco the king rules, and in the Moroccan constitution there are red lines (especially concerning the monarchy and Western Sahara) that cannot be crossed. The idea that such a system could guarantee democratic freedoms, autonomy, and political rights to Sahrawis is implausible.

Moreover, Rabat has not implemented meaningful decentralization within Morocco itself, making the Western Sahara “autonomy” claim look more like a political smokescreen than a genuine offer. How can Morocco offer regional autonomy while denying it in other regions in Morocco?

The 1991 UN-brokered peace agreement was based on a clear premise: a referendum allowing Sahrawis to choose between independence, integration with Morocco, or autonomy. Morocco initially agreed to this but has since blocked all efforts to hold a credible vote. Now it seeks to erase independence as an option entirely. This is not negotiation—it is blackmail. The Sahrawi people, through their recognized representative, the Frente POLISARIO, continue to demand the referendum they were promised.

The Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara since 1975 constitutes a textbook case of colonial acquisition of territory by force. Supporting Morocco’s autonomy plan is not a neutral act—it legitimizes the notion that military occupation can eventually be sanitized through diplomatic delay and political rebranding. This directly undermines international norms established after World War II to prevent wars of conquest.

If the international community endorses this model in Western Sahara, what prevents other states from using similar tactics? The implications for global peace and conflict resolution are deeply concerning.

Perhaps most troubling is the erasure of Sahrawi voices from the autonomy discourse. The overwhelming majority of Sahrawis, both in the occupied territories and in refugee camps in Algeria, reject Morocco’s proposal. They see it not as compromise, but as capitulation. Peace cannot be imposed through coercion; it must be built on consent. To impose autonomy without a referendum is to deny Sahrawis their most basic political agency.

The European Union, which has long presented itself as a defender of international law and multilateralism, is uniquely placed to play a constructive role in resolving this conflict. A just and lasting solution in Western Sahara would not only align with the EU’s normative values—it would serve its strategic interests.

First, stability in the Maghreb is essential for European security. The region is geographically close, interconnected via migration routes, and strategically situated near Europe’s southern flank. Instability in Western Sahara, if left unresolved, continues to fuel regional tensions and prevents effective regional cooperation.

Second, Western Sahara is rich in resources that are important to the EU, including fisheries, phosphates, agriculture, and renewable energy (especially solar and wind potential). The EU has been embroiled in repeated legal disputes over trade and fisheries agreements involving Western Sahara, which European courts have ruled cannot be applied to the territory without the consent of its people. A political resolution grounded in international law would finally end these legal and ethical challenges.

Third, resolving the Western Sahara issue would create a foundation for genuine regional integration. A stable, cooperative Maghreb—encompassing an independent Sahrawi Republic, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Libya, and Morocco—could emerge as a reliable partner to the EU, offering a bloc of stability, trade, and renewable energy cooperation. Such a development would support the EU’s ambitions for a sustainable, secure, and diversified energy transition.

Fourth, a lasting resolution would also help the EU manage migration more humanely and effectively. Stability and economic development in the Maghreb reduce the drivers of irregular migration. Yet the continued occupation and marginalization of the Sahrawi people contribute to regional insecurity, frustration, and radicalization risks—pressures that ultimately impact Europe.

Finally, the EU must protect its credibility. Supporting Morocco’s autonomy plan while ignoring UN resolutions and EU court decisions undermines the Union’s claims to be a values-based global actor. If Europe allows geopolitical convenience to trump principle, it erodes trust in its foreign policy and emboldens others to disregard international norms.

Rather than doubling down on flawed frameworks, the international community—especially the European Union—should explore innovative, justice-based solutions that prioritize regional cooperation and free association. A revived Maghreb Union could serve as a model of post-colonial regional integration. But such a vision can only be realized once the colonial injustice in Western Sahara is addressed through genuine decolonization, not disguised through autonomy.

The autonomy proposal is not a step toward peace—it is a sophisticated attempt to entrench occupation and delay justice. It is rooted in imperial logic, not international law. It ignores the clear legal, moral, and political rights of the Sahrawi people to choose their own future.

If the world truly believes in justice, peace, and the rules-based international order, it must stop rewarding colonial conquest. It must uphold its commitment to decolonization and demand a fair, credible referendum that includes independence as an option.

To accept anything less is to betray the Sahrawi people—and the principles on which global peace and European credibility depend.