There is hardly any war that violates international law as flagrantly as the US-Israeli attack on Iran in June of this year. On this, virtually all reputable international law experts agree. Nevertheless, the government and significant sections of Germany\u2019s leading media have openly supported the war.<\/p>\n
Smoke rises from an oil storage facility in Tehran after it was struck by Israel. [AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi]<\/p>\n
The very same voices that day in, day out denounce the Ukraine war as a \u201cRussian war of aggression in violation of international law\u201d do not bother to gloss over the clear breach of international law by Israel and the US. Instead, they rely on the arguments of Nazi jurists like Carl Schmitt to assert that a war can be \u201clegitimate\u201d even when it violates legality.<\/p>\n
This open disregard for international law, which currently manifests itself as grovelling before the Trump administration, can be understood only against the backdrop of German rearmament and Berlin\u2019s ambition to become \u201cthe strongest military power in Europe.\u201d In preparation for future wars of aggression, Germany\u2019s ruling class is abandoning international law.<\/p>\n
Iran, a historically oppressed country, was attacked out of the blue for 12 days with bombs and missiles, first by the nuclear power Israel on 13 June, and then also by the US, the most powerful military country in the world.<\/p>\n
The attack began unexpectedly, just after Iran had been invited by the US to a new round of negotiations and had accepted the invitation. Hundreds of people\u2014scientists, other civilians, and high-ranking military personnel, as well as their relatives\u2014were killed by the attackers, while residential buildings and civilian and military infrastructure were destroyed.<\/p>\n
On 22 June, the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities with the most powerful non-nuclear bombs ever used in combat. President Trump did not even claim to be acting in self-defence. Numerous legal experts have since confirmed that this was a clear breach of international law.<\/p>\n
Despite this, the German government affirmed its explicit support for the US-Israeli aggression from the very beginning.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) reacted by condemning the Iranian counter-attack \u201cin the strongest possible terms,\u201d while stressing in relation to the Israeli attack: \u201cThey have told us that from their perspective, this is necessary. And we must accept that as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) praised Israel<\/a>\u00a0for doing \u201cthe dirty work for all of us\u201d with its attack on Iran. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democratic Party, SPD) declared that one must not forget that \u201cIsrael is surrounded by enemies and its security is permanently threatened.\u201d Israel, he said, had a \u201cright to self-defence,\u201d and the Americans had \u201ctaken on responsibility in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n On 28 June, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (Christian Social Union, CSU) traveled to Israel as the first international state guest after the war of aggression, meeting there with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, Defence Minister Israel Katz and Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. Netanyahu, with whom Dobrindt posed for photos shaking hands, is the subject of an arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court. In Germany, Dobrindt\u2019s political office would legally oblige him to arrest Netanyahu.<\/p>\n The official aim of the trip was to \u201cshow solidarity with Israel and to be informed about the security situation as well as civil defence and disaster control.\u201d Dobrindt explicitly supported the Israeli aggression as a \u201csignificant contribution to the security of Israel and to the security of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n The dishonest official propaganda against Russia is thus completely discredited. Whom Germany supports in a war of aggression does not depend on the legality of the war under international law, but solely on who is waging it and how German economic interests are affected.<\/p>\n A war in violation of international law<\/p>\n Representatives of the German government make no serious attempt to construct a legal justification under international law for Israel\u2019s supposed \u201cself-defence.\u201d<\/p>\n Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations prohibits the use or threat of force in international relations. Exceptions exist only for measures of collective security by the UN Security Council (e.g., Article 42 UN Charter) or the right to self-defence (Art. 51 UN Charter).<\/p>\n The definition of aggression was established in 1974 in Resolution 3314 of the UN General Assembly. It describes aggression as the use of armed force by one state against another state in contradiction to the UN Charter.<\/p>\n Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines the \u201ccrime of aggression\u201d as \u201cthe planning, preparation, initiation or execution of an act of aggression, which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.\u201d Germany has ratified this statute (though the US and Israel have not), and in 2017 incorporated the \u201ccrime of aggression\u201d into the German Criminal Code, where it is punishable by life imprisonment, the maximum penalty in Germany.<\/p>\n No one has claimed that the attack on Iran was justified as a measure of collective security by the UN Security Council. There was no resolution that came even close to suggesting this.<\/p>\n The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of 12 June 2025, often cited by Israel, the US, and their supporters, does not claim that Iran possesses or is in the immediate process of building nuclear bombs. On the contrary, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi emphasised in an interview with\u00a0Al Jazeera\u00a0on 19 June that Iran\u2019s alleged violations of its commitments had not led his agency to conclude that Tehran was building bombs:<\/p>\n We have not seen any elements that would allow us, as inspectors, to confirm that a nuclear weapon has been manufactured or produced anywhere in Iran.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Iran has been a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1968, and, under this treaty, has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and also to enrich uranium. Violations of this do not trigger a \u201cright to self-defence,\u201d especially not for Israel, which possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons but is not a member of the NPT and\u2014unlike Iran\u2014has never allowed inspections of its nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n Conversely, Israel has carried out repeated attacks on countries to destroy their nuclear facilities. In 1981, for example, it used the start of the war between Iraq and Iran to bomb the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak, which was operated under the NPT. This was\u00a0unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council<\/a>, which called on Israel\u2014unsuccessfully\u2014to place its own nuclear facilities under IAEA supervision.<\/p>\n Exactly 20 years ago, the German Federal Administrative Court explained<\/a>\u00a0in relation to the US war against Iraq that, according to Art. 2(4) of the UN Charter, \u201cevery\u201d threat or use of military force against another state is an act of aggression, in violation of international law. It stated there were only two exceptions: a formal decision by the UN Security Council and a case of self-defence. Neither were applicable in the case of Iraq. This also applied in cases of lack of cooperation with UN inspectors, such as the then-head of the IAEA, Mohamed El-Baradei.<\/p>\n A paper by the Bundestag (parliamentary) research service from 2 January 2003 also concluded at the time that an attack on Iraq was not legitimised by international law. Nevertheless, Friedrich Merz supported the attack in 2003, as did the then-CDU chairwoman and later chancellor Angela Merkel.<\/p>\n On his X account, El-Baradei responded directly to Foreign Minister Wadephul shortly after Israel\u2019s attack on Iran:<\/p>\n Has anyone told you that \u201ctargeted strikes against nuclear facilities\u201d are prohibited under Article 56 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, to which Germany is a party, and that the use of force in international relations is generally prohibited under Article 2(4) of the @UN-Charter, with the exception of the right of self-defence in the event of an armed attack or on the authorisation of the Security Council in the case of collective security measures? Perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the basic principles of international law\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Virtually all prominent international law experts in Germany have also stated that the assault by Israel and the US on Iran constitutes a war of aggression in violation of international law by any definition. In the leading bourgeois media, even some who support the war admit this.<\/p>\n Borrowing from the \u201ccrown jurist of the Third Reich\u201d<\/p>\n For example, Carlo Masala, professor of international politics at the University of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) in Munich and a welcome guest on countless talk shows, writes in\u00a0Die Zeit\u00a0under the headline \u201cLegal, legitimate, does it matter?\u201d:<\/p>\n As far as the question of proportionality under international law is concerned, there is broad agreement that the Israeli attack violates international law.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n For him, however, this does not end the debate, but merely opens it:<\/p>\n The insight that not everything that is legal must be legitimate\u2014and conversely, that not everything that is illegal must be illegitimate\u2014has not yet reached Germany.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As proof that the Israeli war of aggression, in contrast to the Russian war against Ukraine, was \u201clegitimate,\u201d he points to long-standing anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli rhetoric in Iran\u2014there were no concrete threats or preparations by the Iranian regime to attack Israel militarily\u2014and to unspecified, supposedly \u201cterrorist attacks orchestrated from Tehran\u201d and the \u201cdirection and financing of terrorist organisations in the region that have been attacking Israel for more than 45 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Masala remains slickly silent on terrorist attacks by the Israeli secret service Mossad on Iranian scientists in Iran, just as he avoids naming the \u201cterrorist organisations.\u201d Presumably, this refers to Iranian-backed groups such as the Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah.<\/p>\n However, these nationalist and Islamist organisations arose from the brutal and illegal Israeli occupation and are not mere \u201cproxies\u201d and obedient order-takers of Tehran, as the political science professor knows very well.<\/p>\n Despite all its propaganda, Israel has always avoided suing Iran before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its alleged proxies. In\u00a01986<\/a>, based on a (largely legally successful) lawsuit by Nicaragua against the US concerning, among other things, control over the right-wing Contras, the ICJ established criteria for attributing responsibility for non-state groups to foreign states, which Israel would have to prove. Israel has wisely not even attempted this.<\/p>\n This means nothing for Masala. He believes one could \u201cask the question whether, although illegal under international law, it might not be legitimate to take away from the power in the Middle and Near East, which has been responsible for terror and destabilisation in the region for decades, the capabilities to continue or even to intensify this policy in the coming years.\u201d He concludes by discussing the \u201cpolitical opportunities and risks\u201d of the Israeli aggression, including the prospects of success and the pros and cons of regime-change and civil war in Iran.<\/p>\n It is no coincidence that the headline of Masala\u2019s essay in\u00a0Die Zeit\u00a0references \u201cLegalit\u00e4t und Legitimit\u00e4t\u201d (\u201cLegality and Legitimacy\u201d), a major work by the right-wing constitutional lawyer and \u201ccrown jurist of the Third Reich\u201d Carl Schmitt, which rails against \u201cvalue-free\u201d legality. Masala thereby addresses the \u201cGerman foreign policy elite,\u201d which, as he complains, is in large parts \u201cstill not fit for the world stage.\u201d<\/p>\n Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) has also made it unmistakably clear that he shares Masala\u2019s and Schmitt\u2019s concept, according to which the only thing that matters is whether Germany considers a war \u201clegitimate,\u201d not whether it is legal. \u201cLegitimate or legal is a subtle but important difference,\u201d he declared on state broadcaster ARD in June. He would not \u201cpresume\u201d to make a legal assessment of the US-Israeli bombs on Tehran, but he explicitly supported them.<\/p>\n As early as 13 June, Jochen Bittner, a lawyer and long-time journalist for\u00a0Die Zeit, called for Germany\u2019s direct entry into the war on the side of the Israeli aggressor on his X account:<\/p>\n The best time to offer Israel every conceivable help in defending against retaliatory strikes from Iran would have been a few hours ago, @bundeskanzler. The second-best time is now.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In another post on X from 16 June, Bittner drew on the theories of Carl Schmitt:<\/p>\n The sad fact is that at least the jus ad bellum [just cause for war] has been ignored by so many sides in recent years (Kosovo, Iraq, Ukraine I, Ukraine II) that it can no longer serve as a moral argument for any side.<\/p>\n So if no one abides by the rules\u2013whose side should one take?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is also an allusion to \u201cLegality and Legitimacy,\u201d where Schmitt places \u201csubstantive value-based decisions\u201d (legitimacy) above \u201cmere, value-free\u201d legality with its \u201cequal opportunities,\u201d but also to another of Schmitt\u2019s major works: \u201cDer Begriff des Politischen\u201d (\u201cThe Concept of the Political\u201d) 1932.<\/p>\n According to Schmitt, this consisted of the \u201cdistinction between friend and foe\u201d and is central to his theories. According to him, a state has significance only if it is willing and able to define an enemy and, if necessary, to fight it with all necessary means. The sole authority to decide on friend and foe and to declare war (jus belli) lies with the state. The state is \u201cthe decisive entity that has the monopoly on the final decision.\u201d Only the definition of an enemy by the state makes it possible to create an internal political identity and unity.<\/p>\n According to Schmitt, an enemy is not a competitor or an opponent, but anyone who is defined as such and can then be fought to the death. In Schmitt’s convoluted words:<\/p>\n This is not about fictions and norms, (…) The enemy is only an at least potentially, i.e., according to real possibility, fighting collective of people which stands opposed to a similar collective.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This also applies, and above all domestically. Democratic fundamental rights and debates, independent political stirrings from below, from the population, are incompatible with this. Anyone who actually or allegedly \u201csides with the enemy\u201d is treated like an enemy himself or is declared one from the outset.<\/p>\n That this is not an abstract theory was shown after Hitler came to power. Carl Schmitt enthusiastically celebrated the\u00a0Erm\u00e4chtigungsgesetz\u00a0(Enabling Act), which transferred governmental and legislative power to Hitler, giving him dictatorial authority, as the \u201cprovisional constitutional law of the new Germany.\u201d Two years later, he effusively welcomed the racist and antisemitic Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 as the \u201cconstitution of freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Jochen Bittner, who in another post on X openly celebrates Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza, terror in Lebanon and war of aggression against Iran as \u201cstrategic elegance\u201d in the hope of \u201cregime change,\u201d is an important figure in the return of German militarism and imperialism. He is well-connected with various think tanks and lobby organisations and co-authored the\u00a0key 2013 strategy paper<\/a>\u00a0\u201cNew Power, New Responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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