Shona Murray: Powerful countries no longer bother with international norms

Europe appears to have accepted the law of the jungle supplanted by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, writes Shona Murray

The US/Israel strikes on Iran — without evidence of an 'imminent' attack by the regime in Tehran, and without a prior mandate from the US Security Council — is further evidence that the most powerful countries in the world no longer bother with the semblance that they are constrained by the international norms of the last few decades. Picture: AP/Hussein Malla

DONALD TRUMP and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iranian strikes are death blows to international law. And Europe will regret not doing enough to save it.

The only two countries attempting to defend global norms are Spain and France.

It’s been prophesied for some time, and has been mourned with each grave breach going unchallenged by Western partners in recent years.

Those issues have included Israel’s alleged use of starvation and pursuit of ethnic cleansing and extermination as part of its assault in Gaza in response to Hamas’s terror attack against Israelis. Another was Trump’s dispensing of basic due process or right to a fair trial in the US by sending almost 200 men from El Salvador to the notorious torture facility or terrorism confinement centre under US ‘third country’ deportation policies — despite federal courts ordering the Trump administration to at least provide evidence of their crimes or gang affiliations.

The US/Israel strikes on Iran — without evidence of an “imminent” attack by the regime in Tehran, and without a prior mandate from the US Security Council — is further evidence that the most powerful countries in the world no longer bother with the semblance that they are constrained by the international norms of the last few decades.

The Bush/Blair Iraq War in 2003 was also initiated without the requisite legal requirements. It led to global instability, which gave us Islamic State (IS) and industrial-scale torture at Guantanamo Bay and other rendition sites, as well as a deeply fractured Iraq.

Indeed, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a welcome moment for millions of Iraqis — especially Kurds who had been gassed, murdered, and tortured by Hussein for all of his reign — but surely there was another way to depose him without the unlawful killing of so many innocent lives in Iraq.

Similarly, the end of the tyrannical regime in Iran is to be ultimately welcomed — if that’s what transpires. 

What are the ultimate aims of US and Israel?

However, there is no indication from the US or Israel that their ongoing intervention is designed to help the people of Iran live in a free and dignified country when this war ends.

If US secretary of war Pete Hegseth is to be believed, there is no plan other than wreaking abject destruction.

The most telling language was when Hegseth said: “Our warfighters have maximum authorities [sic], granted personally by the president and yours truly.

“Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. 

Thus far, Operation Epic Fury has delivered twice the air power of shock and awe of Iraq in 2003, minus Paul Bremer and the nation building. 

Hegseth was referring to Bremer’s ill-fated, De-Ba’athification policy which ousted tens of thousands of civil servants, including teachers and others, from public sector roles by virtue of them being members of Hussein’s Baa’th Party.

The idea was to allow Iraq’s opposition to take control of the country in the spirit of democratisation.

This time, it feels like a fatal blow has truly upended the world order.

Most of Europe has now acceded to Trump and Netanyahu’s law of the jungle.

Global instability

Over the last two and a half decades, the world has become increasingly unstable — 9/11, the first Iraq War, the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Brexit, Trump’s first administration, the fall of Afghanistan, and covid, followed by the last 12 months of dire unpredictability after Trump returned to the White House.

Amid all of this, Europe has at least tried to defend the rules-based system which has allowed the EU flourish. The system Brussels says is its central attraction as a place to live and do business.

As news of the attacks emerged early Saturday, including the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader as part of the early wave of Israeli airstrikes around Tehran, so too did the footage of parents and children screaming in horror amid the aftermath of the bombs.

At time of writing, the burial of 176 Iranian schoolgirls has rarely been mentioned — never mind condemned by European leaders.

If 176 children were slaughtered in their classrooms in Dublin, Brussels, Berlin, Tel Aviv, or Texas by a foreign adversary, the world would rightfully be at a standstill.

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But the chancellor of Germany, Fredrich Merz, while admitting the Iranian operation carried “risks”, told the world on social media: “Now is not the time to lecture our partners and allies.”

During last year’s previous Israeli/US operations on Iran, Merz also said: “Israel is doing the dirty work for the rest of us.”

Contrast that to Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who said in the immediate aftermath: “We reject the unilateral military action of the US and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order.

You can be against a heinous regime such as that in Iran while also rejecting a military intervention that is unjustified, dangerous, and outside of international law.

The attacks were “outside of international law”, and Paris “cannot approve of them”, French president Emmanuel Macron said.

The Israeli/US offensive in Iran has been expected for some time.

Brussels has been anticipating a moment — which was always predicted to be a weekend — where news would emerge of US strikes.

America’s friends in Europe no longer even expect the courtesy of being pre-warned about attack.

Europe appears to have accepted the law of the jungle favoured by Trump and Netanyahu.