Africa-Press – Angola. Recently, that is, less than 4 days ago, we observed in the global arena the attacks of the United States against Iranian nuclear facilities, which represents yet another chapter in the politics of force that has marked the contemporary international order.
Under the pretext of containing nuclear proliferation and ensuring stability in the Middle East, the United States opted for a severely unilateral action, completely outside the framework and guidance of the United Nations Security Council. This decision reveals not only the continuation of a security logic based on the preventive use of force, but also deepens the crisis of legitimacy of International Law and multilateral institutions. Having said that, it is necessary to analyze the event in three essential variables, which I will highlight below:
1 – The erosion of International Law
International law, especially the nuclear non-proliferation regime enshrined in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), has established a set of assumptions aimed at balancing the rights of States regarding the peaceful use of nuclear energy with the prohibition of the construction of atomic weapons. Iran, as a signatory State to the aforementioned “NPT” treaty, has already been under intense scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Even in the face of the ambiguities of the Iranian program, the diplomatic route has always been presented as the ideal path, which led to the culmination of the 2015 Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA), mediated by powers such as Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany. And on this premise, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) himself, in an interview given yesterday 06/22/2025 in Al Jazzera, stated that none of the reports made by the organization within the scope of the inspection carried out at the facilities in Iran, confirmed the improper use of nuclear energy for military purposes, which does not justify the invocation of a preventive attack by the USA in the form of guaranteeing international peace and security.
In view of this, it is clear that the US military action disregards this legal and diplomatic path. It acts without the authorization of the UN Security Council, which directly violates Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force except in cases of self-defense or with the express authorization of the UN Security Council. Therefore, by acting without international support, the US reaffirms the logic of legal exceptionalism that defends the idea that, for reasons of national security, it can exempt itself from the rules that it imposes on others.
2 – International Organizations in Functional Collapse
The UN’s inaction or impotence in the face of this type of action confirms once again the realistic diagnosis that International Organizations continue to be hostages to the interests of the great powers. Just to give you an idea, the Security Council, composed of permanent members with veto power, is unable to function autonomously or effectively when it comes to curbing the excesses of its own members. That said, the attack on Iran clearly and crudely illustrates the structural inability of the UN to guarantee collective peace and security, becoming just another spectator in the face of unilateral actions by the US with the potential for regional and global destabilization.
Another aspect we can consider is that this episode reinforces the argument of scholars such as Stephen Krasner, who argue that international institutions are merely arrangements shaped by the power and interests of dominant states. Within this logic of observation, international law, formed by norms, treaties, conventions and other forms of principles regulating the behavior of states, is not a neutral system of universal rules, but rather a set of norms that can be manipulated according to the current correlation of forces.
3 – Impacts on the international system
Analyzing the behavior of the United States in the face of recent attacks in terms of consequences, we can illustrate three factors that are linked to the dilemma of instability and distrust.
First, at the regional level, the attacks heighten the risk of asymmetric retaliation by Iran or its allied groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria or Yemen, increasingly creating a scenario of continued instability in the Middle East region.
Second, at the global level, there is a growing erosion of trust in international institutions, especially among middle and emerging powers that view, with increasing skepticism, multilateral conflict resolution mechanisms as instruments of selective containment rather than equitable justice.
Thirdly, and perhaps most serious, is the normalization of the use of force outside the international legal framework as established in the United Nations Charter in Chapters VI and VII, which ends up weakening deterrence mechanisms and encourages similar behavior by other powers, such as Russia or China, in their own geopolitical contexts.
It is therefore clear that we are faced with a continuation of the historical failure of international norms and institutions to contain the unilateralism of the powers. The US attack on Iran does not represent just an isolated violation, but a confirmation of the structural asymmetry of the international system. While political realism insists that force continues to be the final arbiter of international disputes, institutional liberalism loses strength in the face of its inability to guarantee compliance with norms and the effectiveness of International Organizations.
This episode reaffirms an uncomfortable truth: the rules-based international order is only valid for the weak. For the strong, as the US demonstrates, international law is merely a tool of convenience, and international organizations, when they do not align with their strategic objectives, are simply ignored.
ANGOLA24
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