FLEXING THEIR LITTLE GRAY CELLS

The madness of bombing Iran (Robert Skidelsky, The Times, April 23rd, 2006)

Note: You have to feel sorry for the left sometimes. It took them three hard and turbulent years, but they finally convinced themselves that, while Saddam was not exactly a gentleman, his errors and excesses paled beside the greatest genocidal crime of the century---the undermining of international law by Bush and Blair. But there is no rest for the weary and suddenly they are faced with the task of defending their blessed multilateralism in the face of an even more dangerous and renegade lunatic from Iran. They are hard at it all over the MSM and the blogosphere and you are invited to share your favourite example (with links if possible) of the stupidest, most fatuous idea for bringing Iran to heel within their sacrosanct transnational system. Here is mine:

First, it needs to be trumpeted that a military strike now would be illegal under international law. The UN Security Council would never authorise it, since Iran has not breached the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that allows every signatory to develop nuclear energy for peaceful use. However, the hawks no longer even talk about the need to get Security Council approval —this is the measure of the damage to international law that Bush and Blair have inflicted.

The United States (or Israel) would claim it was acting in self-defence. But by long-established customary law a pre-emptive strike is justified only to defend against an “imminent and certain” attack. True enough, what happens tomorrow is never certain, but if another country’s troops start massing at one’s frontier that would be pretty good evidence of hostile intention. To claim the right of self-defence against a threat that may or may not emerge in five years’ time is to claim the right to wage aggressive war whenever one chooses. This was one of the two grounds on which Nazi leaders were convicted and executed at Nuremberg. [...]

People who support military action ask: how do we know that Iran isn't lying when it says that its uranium enrichment programme is intended only for civilian use? Surely, this is a clear case for invoking the precautionary principle: the risk may be slight but the consequences of ignoring it may be catastrophic. But no one is arguing that the risk should be ignored. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty now also allows for intrusive inspections. Hans Blix has written: “If you want a control system that gives a maximum of assurance, you can . . . require that inspectors have the right to go almost anywhere, any time, and demand any kind of documents.” Iran has accepted this protocol and operating under it the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence that it is developing a weapons programme. However, the protocol could be strengthened for states such as Iran whose leaders make Hitlerian pronouncements.