Opinions

Economist James Meadway says US President Donald Trump offers threats but no clear plan to end the crisis, leaving markets unsettled as disruption from the Strait of Hormuz closure spreads beyond Asia and into Europe.

For decades, leaders who were responsible for war crimes tended to plead ignorance or insist it was a mistake and their hands were clean. What has changed in the Middle East is the swaggering contempt we have seen from the United States, Israel and Iran as they instead dismiss, mock or flout the international laws protecting civilians. If the international community does not urgently reassert support for those norms, it may be acquiescing to their destruction.

US President Donald Trump, who told The New York Times he doesn’t “need international law” and the only restraint on his power was his “own morality”, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has dismissed “tepid legality” in favour of “maximum lethality”, have expressed little regard publicly for the safety of civilians  affected by the US-Israeli war on Iran, which just entered its second month.

After announcing that the US had “demolished” Iran’s Kharg Island, Trump told NBC News, “We may hit it a few more times just for fun.” Hegseth has declared that “no quarter” would be given to enemies in Iran. That phrase indicates troops are free to kill those seeking to surrender rather than capture them. Such scenarios have served as a textbook example of a war crime in US military academies.

The Trump administration is not alone in this regard. In language eerily reminiscent of the war in Gaza, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has threatened to demolish homes across southern Lebanon and block hundreds of thousands of civilians from returning.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has declared US banks, investment firms and commercial ships valid targets despite their civilian status. Its spokesman warned Iranians that any street protests would be met with “an even harsher blow” than the January massacres, in which security forces killed thousands across the country. A state television presenter was more direct, saying opponents in the diaspora would face consequences that would see their “mothers sit in mourning”.

These statements are worthy of our attention not only because they telegraph a blatant disregard for civilian life but also because these leaders seem to mean it.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Iran, more than 1,200 in Lebanon, and 17 in Israel. Altogether, several million people across the Gulf, Israel and Lebanon have been displaced or forced to flee from their homes. Based on a preliminary US military report, US forces were responsible for a deadly attack on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, in which more than 170 children and staff were killed.

The Israeli military has fired white phosphorus, which can burn to the bone, on Lebanese homes despite a clear prohibition on its use as a weapon in populated areas. Iran has launched internationally banned cluster munitions at Israeli cities and attacked commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The international legal system, designed to protect civilians during armed conflict, did not falter overnight. Unflinching US support for Israel as it carried out acts of genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, destroyed its hospitals and water systems, carried out countless air strikes that turned neighbourhoods into rubble and killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians over two and a half years contributed to a sense that some leaders would always be above the law.

Those double standards are alive and well, profoundly corroding respect for international law. When Iran struck Gulf energy infrastructure, condemnation rightly came within hours. But when Israel unlawfully dropped white phosphorus on Lebanese neighbourhoods, the same governments went quiet. Leaders need to say, with equal specificity and force, that attacks on Iranian power plants, Lebanese homes and Gulf civilian facilities are violations of the laws of war, regardless of who the perpetrator is. Otherwise, the rules are just a cudgel for punishing rivals.

The Geneva Conventions oblige every country not merely to follow the laws of war but also ensure global respect for them, including by refusing to arm forces credibly accused of violating them.

Yet arms continue to flow to belligerents on multiple sides of these conflicts with no apparent review of the likely impact. European governments that supply weapons or grant overflight and basing rights to forces unlawfully bombing civilians are not bystanders. If the actions of US and Israeli forces match the irresponsible rhetoric of their leaders, countries that arm or assist them could very well find themselves complicit in war crimes.

As during the war in the former Yugoslavia or more recently in Ukraine, the machinery of documentation and accountability needs to occur while the conflict is ongoing, not afterwards. Today, warring parties in the Middle East are working to prevent exactly that. Iran has imposed a nationwide internet shutdown and jailed people for sharing strike footage. Israel has banned live broadcasts and detained journalists. Gulf states have arrested citizens for posting images online. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission has threatened broadcasters’ licences over coverage of the war on Iran unfavourable to the Trump administration.

Governments with developed intelligence capabilities should be preserving and sharing evidence of war crimes right now: satellite imagery, communications intercepts, open-source footage. UN investigative bodies need immediate additional resources. And governments need to speak out clearly on the importance of justice for war crimes.

If this work waits until the shooting stops, the evidence may be gone, and the political will for accountability may quickly shift focus. The belligerents know it. They may even be counting on it.

The leaders repudiating the laws of war today may think they will gain from a world without rules, where brute force settles every question and all civilian harm is just written off as collateral damage. But by dismissing the principle of nonreciprocity, which makes clear that one side’s violations do not justify noncompliance by the other, they have spurred rounds of tit-for-tat strikes that put their own troops as well as their civilian populations in harm’s way.

Those who see the value of the existing system curbing the barbarity of war need to stand up for it. Otherwise, they may one day find themselves forced to explain to future generations why they did nothing while it burned.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

On April 1, a British court is set to rule in an important trial that could define the limits of mass protest in Britain. Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Chris Nineham, vice chair of Stop the War Coalition, were both charged with breaching the Public Order Act 1986 for organising a pro-Palestine demonstration in London on January 18, 2025, on which the police had imposed conditions.

Last week, Judge Daniel Sternberg refused to dismiss the case, despite evidence provided by defence barrister Mark Summers that protesters did not break the conditions, nor had any intention to do so. The trial is seen as yet another indication of the rapidly shrinking space for the free expression of dissent in Britain.

Politicised policing

The proceedings in the trial against Jamal and Nineham have revealed the extraordinarily close relationship between the Metropolitan Police and Zionist groups. This includes the police accepting recommendations from these groups about the Palestine movement’s demonstration routes.

In negotiations between protest leaders and the police ahead of the January 18 demonstration, the police had agreed in principle to a demonstration forming up outside the BBC headquarters in central London, which is close to the Central Synagogue. Protesters had assembled there before and were keen to do so again in order to highlight the BBC’s pro-Israel bias.

During the trial, it was revealed that police commander Adam Slonecki received a letter from the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), which threatened a judicial review if he failed to impose conditions on the protest. Slonecki had also had a series of meetings with various pro-Israeli groups after receiving the letter.

On December 20, he met with protest organisers and explained – without offering evidence or mentioning the meetings that had taken place – that the demonstrations were producing a “cumulative impact” in the form of serious disruption to the Jewish way of life, and that protesters were to be banned from marching in the vicinity of the BBC.

Ultimately, the police allowed only a static protest on January 18, at Whitehall. In a carefully worded speech on the day, Jamal announced from the stage that a small delegation of protesters would walk towards the BBC to lay flowers in memory of those killed in Gaza. If prevented, they would lay the flowers at the feet of the police and disperse. The police allege that Jamal’s speech constituted incitement to breach the conditions.

In fact, as protesters waited for the police to decide where the flowers could be laid, Nineham was violently arrested.

The defence argued that the police were unduly influenced by pro-Israeli pressure in the run-up to the demonstration and failed to facilitate the right to protest. That the police commander did not make any effort to meet with sections of the Jewish community that are pro-Palestine validates the suggestion of police bias.

Growing restrictions on protest

The trial of Jamal and Nineham should be seen within the context of growing efforts by successive British governments to limit the rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

In 2022, the British Parliament approved the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which expanded police powers to impose conditions based on the location and size of protests, and noise levels. It has been considered an affront to civil liberties, in part because it follows a logic that relies on police perception of risk rather than actual harm.

In 2023, the Conservatives introduced amendments to strengthen Public Order Act 1986, which remains the primary legislation for policing protests in the country. Public Order Act 2023 provides police with greater powers to prevent protests that are deemed disruptive – with vague definitions of what constitutes disruption – and includes pre-emptive restrictions around freedoms of assembly and association.

Both acts are widely criticised for having a chilling effect on people seeking to exercise the legitimate democratic right to protest.

Also in 2023, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman attempted to push through regulations to lower the threshold for what is considered “serious disruption”, but this was struck down by the Court of Appeal in 2025, which ruled that the government had exceeded its powers.

Now the Labour government – in lockstep with the Conservatives – is seeking to further expand police discretion over the regulation of protest through the Crime and Policing Bill, one element of which is managing “cumulative impact”.

Over 100 MPs have expressed opposition to it, in addition to campaigning groups, because it would restrict protests based on frequency, not behaviour, and make protests more conditional and subject to police discretion.

In parallel, the government is trying to push through a bill that would cut in half the number of trials that go to jury. If this legislation passes, fewer protest-related cases may reach juries, reducing resistance to unpopular laws.

This is on top of the amendments made last year to The Terrorism Act 2000 to proscribe Palestine Action, making it a criminal offence to belong to or support the organisation, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. These came after a group of Palestine Action activists – known as the Filton 24 – broke into the Elbit Systems drone factory in Bristol to protest Israel’s genocide in Gaza. They were arrested and held on remand, many for over 18 months.

Although they were recently cleared of the most serious charges, and the organisation was successful in pleading for a judicial review that ruled that the home secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation was unlawful, the police have already made 2,700 arrests and will continue arrests pending the outcome of an appeal.

Already, one of the Filton 24, Qesser Zuhrah, was rearrested on March 30 for a social media post calling for “direct action”.

Cumulative impact

The imposition of tougher legislation was introduced in response to climate protesters and anti-monarchy protesters. Now it is being reinforced over Palestine protest. But it is clear that it won’t stop there.

If implemented, the proposed legislation around cumulative impact could be used against any group of people exercising democratic rights, whether trade unionists or anti-war campaigners, curbing their ability to organise freely.

It could also serve to reinforce division in society, as measures are increasingly deployed at police discretion. Recently, for example, the police have not given protest organisers permission to march on their proposed route for the annual Nakba Day demonstration on May 16, while they have granted Tommy Robinson, a notorious fascist, the whole of central London to do its far-right march.

Whatever the outcome of Jamal and Nineham’s trial on April 1, there needs to be a society-wide mobilisation to defend the rights to free speech and assembly. This is no longer just about the Palestinian cause, but about British democracy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

One week ago, several outlets reported on a consequential development in the disciplinary case regarding the alleged sexual misconduct by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim Khan. In a confidential report addressed to the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), the judicial experts tasked with assessing the United Nations probe’s factual findings unanimously concluded that no misconduct or breach of duty by Khan could be established under the legal framework.

It is now for the 21 ICC states represented on the bureau to decide whether to uphold or depart from the panel’s legal conclusion. If the bureau were to find misconduct of a less serious nature, it could impose sanctions on Khan. A finding of serious misconduct would lead to a plenary ASP vote on the possible removal.

A minority of bureau members have reportedly been pushing for the judicial experts’ report to be set aside and for the bureau to substitute its own conclusions for those of the panel. This would be a precarious step. We are concerned that it would undermine the quality of subsequent decisions in Khan’s case and seriously damage the integrity of the ICC’s governance framework. It would also raise serious questions about the state parties’ credibility and their commitment to the rule of law in governing the court.

This position is consistent with our unequivocal belief that there must be zero tolerance for sexual and other forms of workplace abuse in any organisation — public or private — especially those dedicated to international justice and the fight against impunity for the most serious crimes, and that accountability for any such abuse is non-negotiable.

At the same time, particularly in politically sensitive cases, strict adherence to due process, the highest standards of decision-making, and the rule of law is of paramount importance to prevent ill-founded decisions, political interference, and abuse of power. These convictions are not in tension. For us, the ends do not justify the means.

It is true that the bureau is not legally bound by the panel’s conclusions: the experts performed an advisory function, and their report is not formally binding. Their mandate was to assist the bureau in reaching a credible and well-founded decision on the legal assessment of the factual findings reached in the UN investigative report.

The question before the panel was strictly legal. It was to give a legal characterisation of facts established by UN investigators. Factual findings are distinct from the allegations or the evidence on which they are based, and, as far as can be judged from media reports, the panel did not cross that line.

Diplomats should refrain from assuming the role of judicial experts at this stage, particularly now that such judicial expert advice has been issued. As a political body, the bureau initially recognised that it was not well-placed to make this legal determination on its own — understandably so, given the risks of politicisation of the process and the diminished credibility of any outcome. It mandated a nonpolitical, quasi-judicial body — a panel of judicial experts with relevant subject-matter expertise and experience — to carry out that assessment. This was a sound decision.

The integrity of the court and of the Rome Statute system is at stake as never before. Given the seriousness and complexity of this matter, it was appropriate that the legal assessment be entrusted to an independent and impartial body of judicial experts. In politically charged contexts, such bodies are best placed to assist political decision-makers in reaching conclusions that are both well-founded and credible – and, as much as possible, insulated from political influence.

This is precisely what the bureau set out to achieve. It developed a novel procedure to be applied to this case and itself chose and appointed the judicial experts. As revealed by The New York Times, the panel was composed of three highly regarded senior judges with impeccable track records and experience serving on the highest national and international courts. Tasked with the legal analysis of the UN investigators’ factual findings, it did the job it was meant to do – where such findings had been made.

But now that the process has run its course and the panel has reached its conclusions after three months of intensive work, some states and rights advocates are ready to ignore them because they disagree with the result. Why pursue a quasi-judicial process in the first place if its outcome can so readily be dismissed?

We are convinced that, given the current stage and the nature of the process that was adopted to get there, the panel’s report should be accorded due deference by the bureau and taken seriously, not dismissed lightly, by ICC states. Should states substitute their own conclusions, however, the outcome would be even more problematic than if no panel had been established in the first place.

Disregarding the report will create the impression that the panel was only needed to assist states in reaching one specific conclusion. Can the impression be avoided then that the judicial expert panel’s report has lost all value in the eyes of assembly officials and bureau states, who had devised and supported this process, once its conclusions proved unwelcome? The spectre of a show trial looms large.

Furthermore, if states disagree with the panel, one must ask: based on what factual findings and based on whose legal analysis? The bureau would need a very solid foundation to depart from the judicial experts’ conclusions. But it can realistically neither conduct a follow-up investigation to collect additional evidence and analysis of facts to resolve the remaining uncertainties, nor engage in their legal consideration de novo.

In our view, dismissing the judicial expert report and substituting the bureau’s own judgement would be deleterious to the rule of law, due process, and the integrity of the legal determination as to the existence or otherwise of misconduct by Prosecutor Khan. It would also undermine the authority of the judicial panel mechanism now codified in the ICC rules for any such situations in the future.

Political decision-making should not be allowed to replace and displace a legal assessment carried out in accordance with the highest standards of judicial competence, independence and impartiality, which the political body itself insisted on upholding.

The implication that legal form was used merely as a cover for arbitrary power would be hard to escape. We fear that this would plunge the ICC system deeper into an already existing crisis, without offering the relief some may hope for. The ICC states know full well that this is a cost they cannot afford, particularly at this juncture.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

My deepest sympathies lie with the Iranian people, whose hearts are torn in many directions. Many long for freedom and dignity, yet they remain wary of the long history of Western imperial intervention across the world, including their own country.

The Iranian people who took to the streets in recent years did not call for one form of domination to replace another. They demanded an end to oppression in all its forms, not the beginning of a new round under the Western thumb. Nor did they want change at any cost.

At every step, history teaches us – these promises of freedom offered by the West are never fulfilled.

The reason is simple. The freedom of others is simply not on the Western agenda, no matter its public rhetoric. Imperialism of this nature does not want freedom; it wants control, domination, power and profit.

On March 4, as bombs were falling around him in Tehran, Mohamad Maljoo, an Iranian dissident, was finally able to connect to the internet. He wrote on his Telegram channel: “Those who claim that one can rain fire on the body of Iran in the name of striking the Islamic Republic while imagining that the people will remain unharmed either do not understand the reality of war or deliberately choose to ignore it. Bombs do not discriminate. Destruction does not operate selectively.”

The truth of his warning echoes from Palestine to Iran: “Life does not flourish in the shadow of oppression. Nor does it grow beneath the rubble of bombs.”

As a Palestinian, I feel the pain and determination in these words. I cannot help but feel solidarity.

We, Palestinians, know the horror of war in our bodies. We understand the shudders caused by yet another explosion, the tears of orphans and the despair of sleepless nights as fires burn everywhere. From the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) to the current Ibadah (destruction), we have felt the pain of genocide for many generations. We see the echoes of our experience in the plight of others.

The US-Israel war on Iran began with something all too familiar to us: a strike on a school.

According to UNICEF, an average of a classroom full of children was killed each day for two years in Gaza; 432 out of the Strip’s 564 schools sustained “direct hits” from the Israeli army.

The Shajareh Tayyebeh, a girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab in southern Iran, was also a “direct hit”. About 170 young girls between the ages of six and 12 and staff were killed by two high-precision US-made Tomahawk missiles on February 28.

After the initial strike, teachers rushed to protect the students. Paramedics hurried to the scene to rescue the wounded. And then, a second bomb fell.

It was a double-tap strike – a horror of modern-day warfare that people of Gaza know all too well. It is designed to kill its target and then kill again those who come to the rescue.

Like in Gaza, the attack on the girls’ school in Minab did not remain an exception. Over the past three weeks, Israel and the United States have rained death and destruction on public spaces across Iran. Schools, hospitals, sports halls, stadiums, stores, cafes, bazaars and historical sites have been attacked. More than 5,000 residential units have been hit, and over 1,900 civilians have been killed.

As in Gaza, the cumulative goal is not only physical destruction, but also the spread of fear and terror. The targeting of civilian spaces thus operates as a form of psychological warfare — an assault on the very idea of safety and normality.

Targeting civilian infrastructure is against international law. Yet the US and Israel view international legal norms through the lens of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the rules of engagement, calling them “stupid”.

By now, it is clear that Gaza has served as Israel’s laboratory, as a testing ground, for the vision it seeks to impose across the entire region.

Just days ago, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a chilling warning: “Dahiyeh [in southern Beirut] will look like Khan Younis.”

The destruction of Khan Younis – my hometown – has become the new model of devastation to be repeated elsewhere. In Lebanon, in the span of 20 days, this model has resulted in the massacre of nearly 1,100 people, including 120 children – a full classroom every three days.

What we witness in Gaza travels to Lebanon, then on to Iran.

What is the ultimate goal? The consolidation of Israeli hegemony in the region. The strategy is not necessarily the complete overthrow of the Iranian regime, but rather to break the Iranian state itself and significantly curtail its capacity to project power. A weakened or broken Iran would no longer be an obstacle to Israeli regional supremacy.

All this is happening with the full support of the US. Just last month, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee voiced his approval for Israeli expansion into “Greater Israel”.

Other Western powers have also consented, supporting the illegal war on Iran, albeit refusing to commit their own troops, ships and aircraft.

In his poem “The Earth Is Closing on Us”, Mahmoud Darwish wrote:

“Where should we go after the last frontier?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?”

Soon, this may become the reality for the entire region. Under Israel’s absolute and unrestrained dominance, we will all feel as if we have nowhere left to go. What will life under this reality look like?

If Gaza is the laboratory, then we can picture that the region will burn in flames for years to come.  Whenever Israel wants to, it will “mow the lawn” to impose its will over any government and to suppress any rebellion from the people of the region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

In March 2003, a million people took to the streets of London to oppose the illegal invasion of Iraq. Seeing straight through the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, protesters warned the British government in no uncertain terms: This action would trigger a spiral of misery, hatred and death.

More than 20 years on, most people now recognise the Iraq war for what it was: a catastrophic mistake that fuelled a string of subsequent conflicts and instability. The United Kingdom had followed the United States into an illegal war – and more than a million Iraqi men, women and children paid the price.

Unfortunately, not everybody has learned the lessons from the past. It has been almost a month since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran. More than 1,400 Iranians and more than 1,000 Lebanese people have been killed.

In seeking to justify the bombing, US President Donald Trump spoke of the need to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime”, whose “menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world”. He said the goal was to make sure Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon”. Sound familiar?

The first casualty of war is the truth, so let us get the facts straight: These are lies that have been peddled to justify an illegal and unprovoked war. As the National Counterterrorism Center Director, Joe Kent, said in his resignation letter last week, Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation” and that it was “clear that [the US] started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

There is only one nuclear-armed state in the Middle East: Israel. Next month’s UN Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would have been the perfect place to call for an end to the nuclear arms race. A diplomatic solution was possible, but the US and Israel chose war instead. In doing so, they have jeopardised the safety of humankind around the world. So, too, have those nations that have decided to lend support to their war of aggression.

Shortly after the attacks on Iran began, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave the US permission to use British military bases for strikes on Iranian missile sites. Last week, his government agreed to let the US use British bases to strike Iranian sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz.

The UK could have followed in the footsteps of Spain and said, “No way, absolutely not. We will not be involved in this illegal war in any way whatsoever.” Instead, it has dragged itself into another catastrophic conflict.

Astonishingly, the prime minister still maintains that the British government is not involved – a line that has been regurgitated by many across our media. He says the UK is allowing its sites to be used only for “defensive” strikes. What nonsense.

The reality is, if a bomber takes off from Royal Air Force base Fairford and bombs targets in Iran, we are involved in that act of aggression. If civilians die, will their families stop mourning when they are told that they were bombed for “defensive purposes”? No matter how Starmer dresses it up, he cannot change the truth: The UK is directly involved in this war.

Mark my words: This is a historic mistake that jeopardises the safety of us all. That’s why, earlier this month, I tabled a bill in the House of Commons that would require parliamentary approval for any British involvement in military action. That includes the use of British bases by other nations.

So far, the prime minister has refused to pass this legislation. With no debate, no discussion and no vote, he is dragging Britain into another disastrous illegal war.

Just like with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, today, those of us who oppose the war on Iran are accused of giving succour to authoritarian regimes and leaders. Whatever one thinks of the governments of various places, there is no basis in law for an attack to bring about regime change. There is no basis in history that bombing from the sky would bring about human rights either.

Trump couldn’t care less about people’s human rights. Whether it’s in Iran, Venezuela or Cuba, he is interested in one thing and one thing only: seizing resources and political control around the world.

If the UK cares about international law, it would be standing up to Trump, not bending over backwards to appease him.

The story of US-led foreign interventions is a story of chaos, instability and misery. How many more of these catastrophic failures do we need before we learn the lesson? And what will it take for the UK to finally defend a consistent, ethical foreign policy based on international law, sovereignty and peace?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Since Donald Trump entered the political fray, critics have opined that if he ever faced a direct confrontation with Iran as United States president, the result would be chaos, endless war, and global instability. They have been proven wrong once again.

Today, the world is witnessing the swift decisive assertion of US power that is leading to a clear military victory over a terrorist state that has long threatened US as well as global peace and security.

For too long, US foreign policy was dominated by hesitation disguised as sophistication. US presidents, Democrat and Republican, advocated for “containment”, “strategic patience”, and “measured responses”, while adversaries grew bolder and more brazen. Iran expanded its influence across the Middle East, funded proxy militias, threatened global energy supplies, and openly challenged Washington’s credibility by attacking US interests, personnel and assets.

Trump rejected the conventional Washington approach even before assuming public office. He never believed that endless negotiations or carefully worded diplomatic statements would deter a regime that only yields to power. His critics called it recklessness. What it actually was, was clarity.

Instead of drifting into another conventional decade-long war, Trump chose a simple formula: hit hard, hit fast, and make it clear that the US will not capitulate to threats.

Today, most of the foreign policy establishment still defines “victory” the way it did in the 20th century: overthrow the regime, occupy the country, and rebuild its government in our liking. That post-World War II and Cold War model worked in Europe, Asia and Latin America. It did not in the Middle East. Iraq and Afghanistan proved that nation-building can be a futile endeavour.

Trump understands something Washington does not want to admit: the exercise of American power should not be to build democratic societies. It should be to eliminate threats.

From the outset, the Trump administration made clear that it was launching the attacks to control the outcome.

If Iran’s military leadership has been weakened, if its ability to threaten US forces and allies has been reduced, and if its nuclear ambitions have been significantly set back, then the mission has already succeeded, and it is time to end the war.

When Trump declares victory, he will not do it quietly. He will say it directly: America struck, America won, and America did so without engaging in another endless war.

Timing has always been one of Trump’s political talents. He understands momentum better than any of his predecessors of the past few decades did. If the military objectives have already been largely achieved, waiting months to say so would only weaken the message.

Declaring victory at the moment of peak strength sends a powerful signal — not just to Iran, but to the entire world.  It ratifies that the US has red lines again. It makes clear that threats will be met with force, not speeches. And most importantly, it declares that the US is once again confident enough to act decisively.

Critics on the American left will predictably label any Trump victory “premature” and his methods “illegal” and reckless. But their genuine discomfort with his success has more to do with the use of American firepower to achieve objectives that they believe can or should only be had through diplomacy and multilateral rather than unilateral actions.

Trump’s “America First” foreign policy builds on US President Ronald Reagan’s peace through strength mantra by being willing to pre-emptively exercise American might to demonstrate American resolve and deter adversaries. It has proven effective before, and it is proven effective again today.

It destroys the critics’ primary thesis — that American strength must always be restrained, that military power should be used cautiously, and that multilateral strategies are a prerequisite.

Trump’s Iran victory speech will not be lofty and replete with platitudes. It will be direct, simple, and unabashedly America First.

He will explain that the US acted because it had to do so. He will declare that the imminent threat of a nuclear Iran has been eliminated. He will say American lives were saved. And he will end by stating that the world is safer because of this sacrifice by the American people.

Through Trump’s America First foreign policy, the US will act decisively and unilaterally. It will not apologise for defending its interests. And it will prove that acting boldly can change the course of events in a matter of weeks, not years.

After decades of vacillation, Trump’s message to the world is simple: America’s back and American interests come first.

America did not need another endless war. It needed a president willing to act.

And that is exactly what it got.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Under the guise of preserving secularism, this law allows the exclusion of people based on their religious identity.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of Canada will begin a four-day hearing for one of the most consequential constitutional cases in the country’s recent history. At issue is Quebec’s so-called “secularism law”, known as Bill 21 – a law enacted in 2019 that prohibits certain public sector workers from wearing visible religious symbols at work.

It bars many public sector employees, including teachers, prosecutors, police officers, and judges, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs, turbans, kippahs, and other visible expressions of faith while at work.

There is much at stake in this case that raises fundamental questions about religious freedom, equality, and the limits of state power in a constitutional democracy. In addition, another significant issue is that to get the bill passed, Quebec’s government had used the “notwithstanding clause”, a unique provision in Canadian law that allows it to override fundamental rights and freedoms. No other constitutional democracy in the world has a similar blanket override of fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Quebec government claims that the law is necessary to preserve the religious neutrality of the state. Yet Bill 21 does the opposite: by forcing some individuals to choose between their profession and their religious identity, the Quebec government is not remaining neutral – it is effectively excluding people of faith from public sector employment.

The use of this extraordinary, and until recently rarely used, constitutional mechanism has turned the spotlight on Bill 21 beyond the borders of Quebec and the debate over secularism and religious freedoms. It has become a test of how far a democratic government can go in limiting fundamental rights and freedoms.

Evidence before the courts shows that Bill 21 affects religious people of many faiths, including Jewish men who wear kippahs and Sikh men and women who wear turbans; but its impact falls particularly heavily on Muslim women who wear the hijab. For many Muslim women who wear headscarves, teaching and other public service careers have effectively been closed off.

The message of exclusion that this law sends to young people is especially troubling. Generations of young people in Quebec are being told that their full participation in public life requires abandoning visible aspects of their identity.

This is why the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association launched the constitutional challenge against Bill 21. The Supreme Court of Canada must consider the implications, and possible limitations, of allowing governments to sidestep rights protections through pre-emptive use of constitutional override powers. The court’s decision will help determine whether constitutional rights in Canada remain meaningful constraints on government power, or whether they can be suspended whenever politically convenient.

These questions extend far beyond Canada. Across Europe and elsewhere, debates about secularism have increasingly centred on restrictions targeting religious expression, often impacting Muslim women in particular.

Canada often prides itself on being a model of multicultural democracy, one that accommodates diversity. Bill 21 challenges that reputation by testing whether neutrality can coexist with policies that effectively exclude people of visible faith from public service.

True secularism does not demand the erasure of religious identity. A neutral state does not require citizens to shed visible expressions of belief in order to participate fully in public life.

The Supreme Court of Canada now has the opportunity to reaffirm these principles and clarify that constitutional rights cannot be easily set aside. At a time when countries around the world are grappling with questions of belonging, pluralism, and the rights of minorities, the Canadian court’s ruling will send an important signal about whether liberal democracies are willing to uphold their commitments to freedom and equality.

We say this is not an abstract idea, but an imperative to demonstrate that commitments to freedom and equality are more than mere words.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

As attention shifts to the Iran war, tighter restrictions on Gaza are driving shortages, price hikes and growing suffering, turning a time of celebration into one of anxiety for millions.

While the world’s attention is fixed on the Iran war, Israel has quietly tightened its chokehold on Gaza, further restricting the flow of goods and aid. As Eid al-Fitr begins, a time meant to be marked by joy and family gatherings, millions in Gaza are struggling under deepening shortages and rising hardship. What should be a moment of celebration has instead become one of anxiety, as the worsening crisis strips Eid of even its simplest pleasures.

The economic crisis is not merely a case of ordinary inflation or a temporary shortage of goods, but the result of a complex interplay between the Israeli occupation, local market dynamics, and broader regional and international strategies. Israel has repeatedly taken advantage of external tensions, such as those involving Iran or Lebanon, to justify tightening restrictions on the movement of goods through crossings while intensifying military pressure on Gaza. This leaves residents directly exposed to soaring prices and shortages of essential commodities.

Even when goods are available in the markets, some traders have taken advantage of the crisis to make excessive profits by raising prices unjustifiably. Tomatoes, for example, which used to be 3 shekels ($0.97) before the recent events, now cost 20 shekels ($6.48). Essential canned goods have increased at similar rates. Cooking gas now costs 80 shekels ($25.92) for an 8kg cylinder, meaning that a family may need about 640 shekels ($207.37) per month just to secure cooking gas. Electricity prices have also increased from 18 shekels ($5.83) per unit to 25 shekels ($8.10), while the cost of living for families who often rely on alternatives such as kerosene stoves (babur) for cooking instead of wood has risen sharply.

Price hikes do not stop here. Meat has become prohibitively expensive, essential medicines are increasingly inaccessible at reasonable prices, and even the simplest Eid traditions are now out of reach for many. This price manipulation reflects how some traders exploit the economic fragility and psychological pressure faced by residents, intensifying feelings of injustice and frustration among the population.

The ongoing war, repeated violations of ceasefire arrangements, and Israel’s broader strategy of using external conflicts as justification for military pressure have turned the narrative of “continuous security threats from Gaza” into a recurring pretext for closing crossings or using them as a tool of control. In this way, Gaza has increasingly become entangled in wider regional tensions and military calculations.

Under these circumstances, Eid al-Fitr in Gaza has become a symbol of daily hardship. Families are forced to choose between basic necessities and the traditions of the holiday. Meat, vegetables and cooking gas have become luxuries for many, while the majority struggle simply to secure the essentials of daily life.

Even when supplies exist, the monopolisation of goods and unjustified price hikes make the local market fragile and expose the weakness of Gaza’s economic structure. Every attempt to stabilise prices or increase supply faces strict restrictions linked to the blockade, creating opportunities for traders to secure quick profits at the expense of ordinary civilians.

In the end, Gaza’s crisis is not merely an economic issue; it reflects a complex intersection of occupation, blockade, commercial exploitation, and regional and international policies that have left the territory marginalised.

Eid al-Fitr, once a symbol of joy, has become a reminder of a lost celebration, but also a call for the international community to take meaningful action: to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, protect civilians from exploitation and prevent human suffering from being turned into an opportunity for profit.

Sometimes, journalists indulge in myths and delusions they claim to decry.

This grating inclination has been on almost giddy display in the still evolving aftermath of United States President Donald Trump’s rash decision to join Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in launching a war with Iran.

Like falling dominoes, a “narrative” gathered momentum among the America’s “progressive” commentariat, insisting that Trump’s order to go to war offended large swaths of the MAGA movement and set off a seismic split in his ardent base.

It is a silly myth and a seductive delusion.

Sure, a handful of familiar MAGA personalities have grumbled that another Middle East conflict betrays the “America First” pledge that helped propel Trump back to the White House.

Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly has questioned whether the US is drifting, yet again, into an endless war without purpose or meaning. Podcaster Joe Rogan has talked about the conflict’s disastrous, unintended consequences. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has warned that the unprovoked attack could trigger chaos across an already volatile region.

Trump, of course, parried the backlash with trademark coarseness. He lashed out. He dismissed the naysayers. He mocked allies who briefly turned detractors.

Headlines blared that a domestic quarrel threatened to engulf his MAGA disciples in a “civil war.”

The idea that MAGA has fractured is fantasy. Disquiet is not rupture. Dissent is not rebellion.

The MAGA “movement” is not a conventional coalition held together by consensus around a coherent, considered set of principles or policies.

MAGA remains what it has always been: a political phenomenon built to burnish one man’s ego and narcissism. As long as that man is Trump, the “movement” bends to his designs and whims. It adjusts; and, inevitably, snaps back into loyal line.

That loyalty remains the movement’s signature force.

For nearly a decade, Trump has tested its limits. He has weathered scandals that would have devoured most politicians. Two impeachments. Criminal convictions. A litany of controversies, including his close and lengthy friendship with the architect of a worldwide sex trafficking ring, the notorious paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

Through it all, MAGA has, if anything, tightened its loving embrace of Trump.

The notion that a fraternal dispute over foreign policy would shatter the vice-like bond is absurd. That bond is emotion. It is visceral.

For his embittered supporters, Trump is the embodiment of grievance-fuelled defiance. He is a charismatic champion against enemies in Washington — the gilded establishment, the media, the global order who treats them with derision and contempt.

Within that parochial framework, Trump’s actions at home and abroad are filtered through the prism of fidelity. When Trump unleashes a war that he once opposed, his devout followers accept his shifting rationales — however obtuse or contradictory. They believe he sees threats others ignore. They believe he acts when others hesitate.

Indeed, polls confirm their steadfast confidence in Trump’s judgement and his enduring appeal.

The Republican Party has always harboured different instincts. Some supporters lean towards isolationism. Others favour aggressive displays of the America’s unparalleled power.

While there may be hints of unease among Republicans about the prospect of a long, costly war with Iran, that unease has not led, and likely will not lead, to a broad revolt anytime soon.

Trump’s standing within the Republican Party remains strong. His approval among Republican voters remains high. They trust him.

That trust trumps the simmering doubts raised by a small, albeit prominent, slice of MAGA fawning pundits and a few recalcitrant members of Congress.

Kelly knows it. Rogan knows it. Carlson knows it.

The trio understands that they operate inside a MAGA universe fashioned and controlled by Trump. Their popularity and influence depend on staying there. They know the defining rule of Trump’s gravitational pull: stray too far and you will be cast out.

Predictably, Carlson avoided escalation.

Instead, he declared his allegiance. He made plain that he still “loves” Trump. He reminded listeners that Trump had reshaped American politics.

Kelly and Rogan may question the risks and dangers of war, but neither would wage a sustained attack on the president. Neither would dare tell Trump’s loyalists to abandon him.

A fleeting disagreement over Trump’s reckless adventure in Iran will not translate into a lasting break.

Even the most high-profile MAGA hucksters recognise that confronting Trump invites retribution and disaster. Their audiences overlap. Their reach thrives in the same ideological ecosystem.

Picking an ultimately losing fight with the ecosystem’s vengeful anchor is rarely good business.

So, MAGA is, at the moment, experiencing a touch of turbulence. It will pass.

Which is why the constant search by establishment media for a dramatic MAGA schism keeps producing the standard result.

Nothing much changes.

Every time Trump sparks outrage, the same prediction appears. This time, the base will rebel. This time, the coalition will splinter.

This forecast is a tired ritual. It ignores the fundamental nature of the MAGA compact. That connection is not rooted in briefs or blueprints. It is a secular religion where the leader is never wrong.

Myopic scribes mistake a fracas for a collapse. They see tension and hope for a divorce. The believers are not preoccupied with the logistics of war or the mercurial logic of “America First”. They care about the man who gave them a voice.

Once the friction fades, the sceptics will retreat. They have nowhere else to go. The undeniable magnetism of Trump’s celebrity and command of MAGA reels most reluctant strays back.

To leave that agreeable orbit permanently is to vanish into irrelevance — a bleak fate for provocateurs who have forged lucrative careers amplifying Trump’s ignorance, intolerance, and fury.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Israel has killed almost 600 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 750,000 in less than two weeks. This is the opening act of Israel’s Gaza doctrine applied to a new front. The formula is consistent: Displace – either by ordering people to leave or by destroying their means of survival. Demolish civilian infrastructure to prevent return and expand territory through so-called “buffer zones”. Fragment any coherent governance by carving territory into disconnected enclaves where military action continues at a lower intensity.

I spent three years working in Palestine before being expelled by Israeli authorities. I watched this doctrine develop in real time. Now, from Beirut, I am witnessing its replication.

In the West Bank, Israel has spent decades fragmenting territory and denying Palestinians any contiguous geography. Water wells sealed with cement, homes demolished over impossible-to-obtain permits, herders pushed from their land by illegal settlement outposts. In Gaza, the same logic was applied with far greater speed and fury.

In October 2023, Israel announced that every Palestinian north of Wadi Gaza had to leave immediately. Days earlier, Israel’s defence minister had declared a complete siege: No electricity, no food, no water. By labelling an entire population as the enemy, Israel created a class of expendable people. The military released maps with Gaza divided into numbered blocks. When your number was called, you were forced to leave. Evacuation orders became the alibi for the crimes that followed. People were ordered into al-Mawasi, a stretch of coastline Israel designated a “safe zone”, a concentration area for hundreds of thousands living in tents, where air attacks continued. So-called evacuation zones were depopulated and destroyed.

Classic counterinsurgency logic would have entailed “clear, hold, and rebuild”. Israel’s approach was radically different: Destroy, displace, dismantle. The goal was not to pacify territory but to empty it. In both Gaza and southern Lebanon, Israel has treated civilian populations as indistinguishable from the resistance they support. Their displacement is the objective. The collapse of their political representation is a condition Israel seeks to make permanent. This is settler-colonial logic in contemporary military form.

The same playbook has now arrived in Lebanon, but with a revealing difference from previous Israeli operations here. In the first Lebanon war in the 1980s, Israel sought to install a sympathetic government. Gaza has shown that Israel has abandoned that aspiration. The goal is no longer to determine who governs a territory but to ensure that no coherent governance exists at all. Nor is Israel alone in this; the UAE’s approach in Yemen and the Horn of Africa – and its support to Israel in Gaza – reflects the same preference for isolated enclaves. What has emerged is a regional doctrine of fragmentation shared between aligned powers.

Israel has issued evacuation orders for the entirety of southern Lebanon and southern Beirut. The familiar map that appeared on my screen in Beirut last week had the same design and the same deadly ambiguity as the ones we dealt with in Gaza; announced evacuation zones failed to match those shown on the map. In Gaza, those who crossed the invisible lines were killed.

Hundreds of thousands of people are now on the move. Schools have become shelters, health workers have been killed, and people are sleeping on the seafront where just two nights ago a tent was bombed. Israel has threatened to attack Lebanese state infrastructure if the government fails to act against Hezbollah – extending its aims from displacement and infrastructure destruction towards the forced destabilisation of the state itself. The Lebanese government has responded by forbidding Hezbollah from firing. This is precisely the internal fracturing that Israel’s strategy appears designed to provoke.

But Lebanon is not Gaza. Hamas was fighting with an improvised arsenal inside a besieged strip of land, and this already proved challenging for Israeli forces. Hezbollah commands more sophisticated weaponry, hardened infrastructure, and decades of preparation for this kind of war. It has shown it can absorb heavy blows and strike back, surprising both Israel and outside observers with the depth of its capabilities. Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa have already met significant resistance. It is here that the doctrine may encounter its limits – not through diplomatic pressure, which has failed to materialise, but through asymmetric military reality. Iran has made Lebanon’s fate explicitly part of any ceasefire calculus, signalling a unification of fronts that Israel had thought were weakened.

A doctrine built on the assumption of impunity has encountered little resistance in the conference halls of a so-called rules-based order. The Gaza doctrine is the expanded version of what Israel previously called the “Dahiyeh doctrine” – the use of overwhelming force against civilian infrastructure – now weaponised towards a larger end: The permanent redrawing of the region’s geography, demography, and political order.

This doctrine has developed in a vacuum of accountability. The International Court of Justice has been ignored. The Security Council has been paralysed. Governments have continued trading with Israel as it steadily normalised the unacceptable. Daniel Reisner, who headed the international legal division of Israel’s military advocate general’s office, was candid in saying that “If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it […] International law progresses through violations.”

The United States is not a bystander to this failure; it is an active participant in deepening it. At the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the transatlantic alliance in ethnonationalist terms and cast colonialism as a Western achievement. At an event in Tel Aviv, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee expressed confidence that Washington would “neuter” both the ICC and the ICJ – the very institutions through which accountability might otherwise be pursued.

What is unfolding in Lebanon is the political continuation of an ongoing settler-colonial project. The evacuation orders are precursors to mass destruction, designed to prevent return and permanently alter the landscape. Stability in the Middle East demands more than ceasefire agreements that manage fragmented populations while permitting lower-grade warfare to continue. It requires unconditional enforcement of international law, full accountability for those prosecuting this doctrine, and the right of return and reconstruction – from Beit Hanoon to Beirut.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

For years, Iran’s leaders believed time was on their side.

After the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehran effectively adopted what later came to be described as a “strategic patience” approach. Rather than immediately counter-escalating, Iran chose to endure economic pressure while waiting to see whether diplomacy could be revived.

The logic behind the strategy was simple: eventually, Washington would recognise that confrontation with Iran was against its own interests.

Today, that assumption lies shattered.

The collapse of diplomacy and the outbreak of war have forced Iran’s leadership to confront a painful reality: their belief that the US would ultimately act rationally may have been a profound miscalculation.

If Iran survives the current conflict, the lessons Iranian leaders draw from this moment may motivate them to pursue a nuclear deterrent.

The strategy of waiting

After the first Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA and launched its “maximum pressure” campaign in 2018, Tehran initially avoided major counter-escalation. For nearly a year, it largely remained within the deal’s limits, hoping the other signatories, particularly Europeans, could preserve the agreement and deliver on the promised economic benefits despite US sanctions.

When that failed, Tehran began gradually increasing its nuclear activities by expanding enrichment and reducing compliance step by step while still avoiding a decisive break.

The pace accelerated after Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament passed a law mandating a significant increase in nuclear activities, in the wake of the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The shift was reinforced further by the 2021 election of conservative President Ebrahim Raisi.

The ultimate goal was to rebuild negotiating leverage, as Tehran believed that broader geopolitical and regional trends were gradually shifting in its favour. From its perspective, China’s rise, Russia’s growing assertiveness, and widening fractures within the Western alliance suggested that Washington’s ability to isolate Iran indefinitely might weaken over time.

At the same time, Iran pursued a strategy of reducing tensions with its neighbours, seeking improved relations with Gulf states that had previously supported the US “maximum pressure” campaign. By the early 2020s, many Gulf Cooperation Council countries had begun prioritising engagement and de-escalation with Iran, culminating in moves such as the 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement brokered by China.

Against this backdrop, even as tensions rose, Tehran continued to pursue diplomacy. Years of negotiations with the Biden administration aimed at restoring the JCPOA ultimately produced no agreement. Subsequent diplomatic efforts under Trump’s second presidency also collapsed.

Underlying this approach was a fundamental assumption: that the US ultimately preferred stability to war. Iranian officials believed Washington would eventually conclude that diplomacy, rather than endless pressure or a major war, was the most realistic and least costly path forward.

The joint US-Israeli assault on Iran has now exposed how deeply flawed that assumption was.

The return of deterrence

While Tehran based its strategy on mistaken beliefs about the rationality of US foreign policy, Washington, too, is misreading the situation.

For years, advocates of the maximum pressure campaign argued that sustained economic and military pressure would eventually fracture Iran internally. Some predicted that war would trigger widespread unrest and even the collapse of the regime.

So far, none of those predictions has materialised.

Despite the enormous strain on Iranian society, there have been no signs of regime disintegration. Instead, Iran’s political base — and in many cases broader segments of society — has rallied in the face of external attack.

Furthermore, Iran spent years reinforcing its deterrence capabilities. This involved expanding and diversifying its ballistic missile, cruise missile and drone programmes and developing multiple delivery systems designed to penetrate sophisticated air defences. Iranian planners also drew lessons from the direct exchanges with Israel in 2024 and the June 2025 war, improving targeting accuracy and coordination across different weapons systems.

The focus shifted towards preparing for a prolonged war of attrition: firing fewer but more precise strikes over time while attempting to degrade enemy radar and air defence systems.

We now see the results of this work. Iran has been able to inflict significant damage on its adversaries. Retaliatory attacks have killed seven Americans and 11 Israelis, placing a growing strain on US and Israeli missile defence systems, as interceptors are steadily depleted.

Iranian missile and drone strikes have hit targets across the region, including high-value military infrastructure such as radar installations. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent global energy markets into turmoil.

Apart from the immense cost of war, the US decision to launch the attack on Iran may have another unintended consequence: a radical shift in Iranian strategy.

For decades, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei maintained a longstanding religious prohibition on nuclear weapons. His assassination on the first day of the war may now motivate the new civilian and military leadership of the country to rethink its nuclear strategy.

There may now be fewer ideological reservations about pursuing nuclear weapons. The logic is simple: if diplomacy cannot deliver sanctions relief or permanently remove the threat of war, nuclear deterrence may appear to be the only viable alternative.

Iran’s actions in this conflict suggest that many leaders now see patience and diplomacy as strategic mistakes. These include the unprecedented scale of Iranian missile and drone attacks across the region, the targeting of US partners and critical infrastructure, and political decisions at home that signal a harder line, most notably the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader.

The choice of Khamenei’s son breaks a longstanding taboo in a system founded on the rejection of hereditary rule and reflects a leadership increasingly prepared to abandon previous restraints.

If a more zero-sum logic of deterrence takes hold across the region, replacing dialogue as the organising principle of security, the Middle East may enter a far more dangerous era in which nuclear weapons are viewed as the ultimate form of deterrence and nuclear proliferation can no longer be stopped.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

As world institutions wobble, The Hague has unexpectedly become the stage for a reckoning long denied in the Philippines.

Proceedings at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in late February offered a rare glimpse of accountability at a moment when global norms feel increasingly fragile. The court held a hearing in the case against former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to confirm charges for crimes against humanity committed during the so‑called “war on drugs”.

For the families of those killed in the “drug war” watching tearfully from the public gallery, this hearing marked the first real step towards justice after years of violence, denial, and dehumanisation of their loved ones. As a Filipino lawyer and counsel for the victims, Joel Butuyan, told the court, “Truth is the antidote to the virus of impunity.”

A three-judge panel – women from Romania, Mexico and Benin – heard arguments from prosecutors, victims’ counsel, and Duterte’s defence lawyer. Their task was not to determine guilt, but to assess whether there is sufficient evidence for the case against Duterte to proceed to trial.

The case focuses on 49 incidents of alleged murder and attempted murder, involving 78 victims, including children, between November 2011 and March 2019, when the ICC still had jurisdiction over the Philippines. In March 2018, soon after the former ICC prosecutor announced a preliminary inquiry into the situation of the Philippines, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the court’s membership, which became final one year later.

The case against Duterte covers his tenure as mayor of Davao City, in the southern Philippines, and the period after he was elected president in 2016. The prosecutors emphasised that the specific incidents they focused on represent only a fraction of the thousands of killings attributed to police and hired hitmen during Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.

I sat in the public gallery alongside victims’ families, activists, clergy, journalists, and lawyers who had traveled from the Philippines to witness a moment many never thought possible. Duterte’s supporters were there, too. But Duterte himself was absent as he waived his right to be present. His written statement declared that he did not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and claimed he had been “kidnapped”. His refusal to appear was obviously a disappointment for the victims’ families, hoping to see him in the dock.

Still, his voice echoed through the courtroom. Prosecutors played video after video of Duterte urging police to kill drug suspects and ignore legal restraints. In one chilling 2016 address, he warned: “If I become the president, I will order the military and the police to hunt down the drug lords, the big ones, and kill them.”  Duterte’s lawyer argued that the prosecutors were selective in their approach to the speeches and that they missed critical information that would exonerate Duterte, including references to using force in self-defence.

Human Rights Watch has been reporting on Duterte’s “drug wars” since 2009, when we detailed the operations of the “Davao Death Squad” that targeted street children, petty criminals and drug suspects when Duterte was mayor. A 2017 Human Rights Watch report showed how Duterte’s “drug war” escalated nationwide after he was elected president.

The panel now has 60 days to decide whether the case will proceed to trial. But while the ICC deliberates, drug-related killings in the Philippines continue, though reduced from their peak during the Duterte administration.

Domestic accountability remains woefully inadequate. Nearly 10 years after the nationwide “drug war” began, five cases have resulted in convictions of a total of nine police officers. The vast majority of those responsible, including senior officials, remain untouched.

The political context is also fraught. Sending Duterte to The Hague may have suited the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr,  allowing him to distance himself from the bloodiest excesses of his predecessor. But several of Duterte’s alleged co‑perpetrators – senior police officers and officials who helped transplant Davao City’s “neutralisation” strategies to the national stage – still wield influence or have gone into hiding.

The security architecture that enabled the killings within the national police force remains largely intact. With the wrong political signal, the violence could easily surge again.

Marcos now faces a defining choice. He can continue outsourcing justice to the ICC while tolerating a culture of impunity at home. Or he can demonstrate genuine commitment to accountability and the rule of law. Doing so would require a clear, public repudiation of the decade-long police operation underpinning the anti-drug campaign, and an explicit assurance that its methods are no longer acceptable state policy.

Marcos should also empower the Department of Justice to pursue investigations and prosecutions in earnest, and take steps to rejoin the ICC, which would, in turn, help strengthen domestic accountability efforts. Without credible domestic action, promises of reform will ring hollow.

This is a moment of reckoning for the Philippines. Families who have waited years for answers deserve more than political convenience; they deserve justice. Whatever the ICC decides in the coming months, the Philippine government need not – and should not – wait. Ending impunity and honouring the dignity of victims begins at home.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The Gulf states have spent years trying to broker peace between Iran and the West: Qatar brokered nuclear talks, Oman provided back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia maintained direct dialogue with Iran through 2024 and into 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The idea that the Gulf states have a responsibility, a moral one, to protect Iran from the consequences of its actions because of good neighbourliness is now grotesque in context. Iran did not return good neighbourliness. Iran returned ballistic missiles.

Iran’s position is based on three propositions. First, that Iran acted in lawful self-defence pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter; that host countries relinquished territorial sovereignty by allowing US military bases on their territory; and that the definition of aggression in Resolution 3314 justifies the attack on those bases as lawful military objectives. Each of these propositions is legally flawed, factually skewed, and tactically wrong. Collectively, they add up to a legal argument that, if accepted, would ensure that the Gulf is permanently destabilised, the basic principles of international law are destroyed, and, in a curious twist, the very security threats that Iran is reacting to are reinforced.

The self-defence claim does not meet the required legal threshold

The UN Charter, in Article 51, permits the use of force only in self-defence against an “armed attack”, and this term is not defined by reference to the state invoking it. The International Court of Justice, in cases such as Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States) (1986) and Oil Platforms (Iran v. United States) (2003), has interpreted the requirement of an “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter restrictively. The Court distinguished between the most grave forms of the use of force, which qualify as armed attacks triggering the right of self-defence, and less grave uses of force that do not. Accordingly, not every use of force, such as minor incidents or limited military activities, amounts to an armed attack. In this light, the mere presence of foreign military bases in Gulf states, maintained for decades under defence agreements with host governments, would not in itself constitute an armed attack against Iran.

Necessity and proportionality are also part of customary international law, requiring that self-defence be necessary and proportional. Iran has not demonstrated either. Targeting the territory of other sovereign Arab states in response to the policy decisions of the United States is neither necessary, since diplomatic and United Nations avenues are still available, nor proportional, since it imposes military consequences on states that are not a party to any conflict with Iran.

Critically, Article 51 also has a mandatory procedural element, in that any state employing self-defence is immediately required to notify the Security Council. Iran has consistently evaded this requirement in each of its escalatory actions. While this may seem to be a minor element, it is in fact the means by which the international community is able to verify and check self-defence claims. A state that evades this requirement is not employing Article 51. It is exploiting the language of Article 51.

Iran’s reading of Resolution 3314 is a fundamental distortion

The provision of Article 3(f) of the Annex to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) (1974) states that an act of aggression includes the “action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State”. Iran could rely on this provision to hold the Gulf states that host United States military bases liable for any act of aggression committed from their territories against Iran. Nevertheless, the mere presence of military bases is not sufficient to hold them to be lawful military objectives; this will depend on their actual contribution to military activities against Iran based on the rules of international humanitarian law.

Thus, such an Iranian reading would be wrong on three distinct legal grounds.

First, Resolution 3314 is definitional in nature. The resolution was adopted to assist the Security Council in determining when aggression has taken place, not to confer upon states the unilateral power to punish states deemed to have committed aggression through the use of force. The resolution itself, in Article 2, asserts the power of the Security Council to make the determination of what constitutes aggression. The self-application of Article 3(f) of the resolution is therefore bypassed altogether.

Second, Article 3(f) speaks of the active launching of an attack, not the passive hosting of a military base. The legal distinction is fundamental. A state, in signing a defence treaty with another and hosting the latter’s troops on its soil, is engaging in a measure of sovereignty. A state, actively launching, coordinating, or enabling military strikes against a third party, is engaged in a different matter altogether. Iran has not credibly shown this latter case. The presence of US troops or bases in the Gulf has been a fact for decades, and this has not constituted armed aggression against Iran under any legal standard.

Third, even if Article 3(f) were applicable, the appropriate course would be to bring the matter to the Security Council, not to launch unilateral military strikes. General Assembly resolutions do not override the Charter. Iran cannot rely upon a non-binding resolution defining terms to override the Chapter VII requirements for the use of force or the clear criteria of Article 51.

Sovereignty cannot be dictated by a neighbour’s strategic preferences

Iran, in invoking the principle of good neighbourliness, asks the Arab Gulf states to deny the United States basing rights. Good neighbourliness is a two-way principle, and it does not allow for interference in the internal affairs of other states, certainly not interference in the decisions of other states simply because they are deemed inconvenient to the interfering state. All UN states possess the inherent right to conclude defence treaties with whomever they choose, and this is so regardless of the opinion of their neighbours.

The asymmetry of Iran’s position is striking and self-disqualifying. Iran itself has active military relationships with Russia and China. Iran arms, finances, trains, and supports the activities of non-state military actors in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force operates openly in various states, and this has been extensively documented in United Nations Panels of Experts reports, as well as other international monitoring reports. According to the standards that Iran applies to the Gulf states, any state that hosts the activities of the IRGC, the transfer of Iranian arms, or the coordination of Iranian proxies on its soil would be engaging in aggression against third parties. Iran will not accept this principle when it is applied to itself. A legal principle that is unacceptable to the party to whom it would be applied is not a legal principle at all; it is a political tool.

A doctrine that defeats Iran’s own strategic interests

From the perspective of international relations theory, Iran’s position follows the logic of offensive realism, which seeks to remove the external balancing architecture of regional neighbours by claiming it to be hostile in nature. However, this approach is empirically self-defeating.

Under balance of threat theory, states react to offensive capability, geographic proximity, and aggressive intentions. Iran’s doctrine, in asserting the right to strike any state that hosts forces it perceives as a threat, drives each and every threat variable to maximum levels for each and every state in the region. The obvious consequence, evident in the data, is that the states in the region and external powers are becoming more, rather than less, securely integrated. The Fifth Fleet’s permanent base in Bahrain, the UAE’s negotiations over F-35s, Saudi Arabia’s deployments of THAADs, and Qatar’s expansion of the Al Udeid base are reactions to Iran’s escalation, not causes of it.

From the perspective of constructivism, the legitimacy of a legal argument is also partly based on the normative credibility of the state that presents the argument. The record of Iran’s compliance with IAEA regulations, including the enrichment of uranium to a purity level of 60 percent or more in 2023–2024, interference with inspections, the removal of monitoring cameras, and the overall violation of the non-proliferation regime, has undermined the credibility of the state significantly. A state that is itself a violator of the legal regime cannot claim the role of a law-abiding state seeking protection under the norms of the legal regime.

Iran’s legal rationale was always theoretically wrong. What has occurred since February 28, 2026, has made Iran’s actions morally and politically wrong. Iran did not simply target US military assets. The reality of the situation is now documented and undeniable. Ballistic missiles and drones were launched against Gulf states in the opening days of the conflict. This marked the first time one actor had simultaneously attacked all six GCC states. Iran escalated its attacks in deliberate stages. Day 1: Iranian missiles were fired against military bases. Day 2: Iranian missiles were fired against civilian infrastructure and airports. Day 3: Iranian missiles were fired against the energy sector. Days 3 and 4: The US Embassy in Riyadh was attacked by Iran. International airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait were attacked by Iranian missiles, resulting in the suspension of flights throughout the region. Videos from Bahrain documented an Iranian Shahed drone attacking an apartment building. This is not self-defence. This is the collective punishment of sovereign nations that went to extraordinary lengths to avoid the conflict.

The rationale provided by Iran falls flat when one considers the actions Iran itself took. Its doctrine held that only targets involved in the preparation or launch of an attack against Iran were legitimate targets. Civilian airports are not military bases. Hotels in Palm Jumeirah are not military command centres. An apartment complex in Manama is not a weapons storage facility. By Iran’s own stated legal rationale, none of these targets was legitimate, yet they were attacked. This was not a legal doctrine at all; it was a pretext for coercion, and the conduct of war revealed this to be the case.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.