Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-rngvg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-05T04:09:50.358Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Ethics of Intervention in Iran and the Autocratic Way of War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2026

James Pattison Open the ORCID record for James Pattison [Opens in a new window]
James Pattison*
Affiliation:
Politics, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester , United Kingdom (james.pattison@manchester.ac.uk)
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The 2026 war in Iran is thus far the high-water mark of the interventionism of the second Trump administration. This essay argues that the war in Iran is profoundly unjust and even worse than the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Like the Iraq War, it fails to meet the main criteria of just war theory and lacks any plausible humanitarian justification. But it is also symptomatic of backsliding toward an autocratic way of war, rendering it wrong in ways that go beyond violations of the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The war in Iran is undemocratic, abdicates any sense of humanitarian or reparative responsibilities, and is highly revisionist of the prevailing international order. In these respects, it is even worse than the 2003 Iraq War.

Keywords

authoritarianismautocratic way of wardemocratic backslidinginterventionIranIraqjust warTrump

Information

Type
Essay
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , First View , pp. 1 - 14
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

The second Trump administration has shown a much greater willingness to deploy military force than the first. It has engaged in military intervention to remove Nicolás Maduro from office in Venezuela; to strike against the Houthis in Yemen; to target Islamic militants in Nigeria, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria; and to attack Iranian nuclear production facilities.Footnote 1 But beyond any of these, the 2026 intervention in Iran stands out as a defining moment for the administration’s interventions, much as the 2003 Iraq War was the high-water mark of the military interventionism of the foreign policy of George W. Bush.

The justifications offered for launching the war in Iran have been farfetched at best. Claims that the United States could be subject to an imminent armed attack from Iran seemed bizarre, especially given the 2025 strikes that were lauded as having “obliterated” Iranian nuclear weapon capabilities.Footnote 2 Like in Iraq, the brutality of the target regime and the absence of a plausible justification of self-defense saw some defenders of the war invoking humanitarian justifications. And it could be argued that there was a case for humanitarian intervention, in light of the brutal repression by the Iranian government of the popular uprising in the country in late 2025 and early 2026, with thousands of protesters reportedly killed, on top of decades-long brutality by the Iranian government. The Iranian writer Hamidreza Zarifinia argued in January 2026 that “intervention is not only permissible, but is regarded as a moral duty” and could “be considered entirely legitimate and humanitarian.”Footnote 3 After the intervention was launched by the United States and Israel on February 28, 2026, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah, labeled it a “humanitarian intervention,” claiming that its “target is the Islamic Republic, its repressive apparatus, and its machinery of slaughter—not the country and great nation of Iran.”Footnote 4 In a similar vein, some U.S. politicians argued that the intervention would enable the repressed Iranian population to be liberated, with Donald Trump claiming that “finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand … when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”Footnote 5

These claims echo the justifications presented for the 2003 war in Iraq, where those supporting the action highlighted the oppression of the Saddam Hussein regime to help defend the war.Footnote 6 Like the Iraq War, the intervention in Iran is illegal.Footnote 7 It is also not a war of last resort, given that diplomacy seemed to be successfully pressuring the Iranian regime, and it lacks legitimate authority, without any attempt to seek the approval of the United Nations Security Council. Indeed, like the 2003 war in Iraq, the war in Iran fails to meet all the traditional criteria of just war theory. This much is largely evident and has been argued in various forums. But in this essay, I want to go further, showing that the U.S. war in Iran is so problematic that it is even worse than the war in Iraq, which previously stood as the quintessential unjust war waged by the United States in recent times.

This essay proceeds as follows. The first section argues that the humanitarian justifications presented are not only baseless but have even less credence than the tenuous claims presented to justify the war in Iraq. The rest of the essay argues that the war in Iran is indicative of backsliding toward an “autocratic way of war,” which renders it ethically worse than the war in Iraq. It is undemocratic, abdicates international responsibilities, and it is highly revisionist of the international order. Just as there has been major backsliding toward autocracy within the United States internally, so there is also backsliding toward autocracy in the ways that the United States has conducted the war in Iran.

The Absence of Humanitarian Credentials

The Iranian government is illegitimate. The popular uprising against the brutal regime in late 2025 and early 2026 brought hope that there would emerge a more moderate and rights-respecting government, but instead the regime launched a vicious and cruel wave of violence. Yet the thoroughgoing illegitimacy of the Iranian regime does not mean that intervention in Iran is automatically humanitarian. There are numerous illegitimate regimes around the world; attacking them is not an humanitarian act simply by dint of their illegitimacy.

How do we determine, then, whether an intervention is humanitarian? We might be tempted to look at whether it resulted in a humanitarian outcome or not.Footnote 8 But this is not very helpful. It leaves us waiting until the outcomes emerge to classify it, where the final outcomes can be years in the making. It also leaves too much to chance. An intervener may fortuitously secure a humanitarian outcome, rectifying a major source of suffering as an incidental side effect of, for instance, its main imperialistic intervention that is highly self-interested. In any case, the war in Iran is highly unlikely to result in humanitarian outcomes, given the bombing of Tehran and targeting of key civilian infrastructure.Footnote 9

Another option, then, would be to look at the motives of the interveners to determine whether the intervention is humanitarian.Footnote 10 Yet establishing the motives of leaders for launching wars is notoriously tricky and largely unreliable since it depends on inferring their internal mindsets. Indeed, given these problems, criminal law generally does not rely upon motives for assessing violations of the law (although there are exceptions, such as for certain crimes, such as hate crimes).Footnote 11 Besides, as far as one might presume, Trump’s and Netanyahu’s motives seemed to have no humanitarian basis, with some suggesting that they attempted to use the war to help with elections later in the year and to distract from other political issues, such as the fallout from the Epstein affair.Footnote 12

Instead of motives and outcomes, we should look to an intervener’s intentions. An intervener with a humanitarian intention has the aim of bringing about humanitarian consequences. This might involve preventing, reducing, or halting a humanitarian crisis. However, it might be the case that the underlying reason—the motive—for the intervener’s having this humanitarian intention is not also humanitarian. It might, for instance, be a self-interested reason, such as the seeking of financial gain. How can we determine an intervener’s intentions? This is more straightforward than determining motives: there are three potential indicators of an intervener’s intentions, on all of which the intervention in Iran scores exceptionally badly.Footnote 13

The first is to examine the general rhetoric of the actor and the role that humanitarian justifications are playing. As with the war in Iraq, the rhetoric supporting the war in Iran is at best inconsistent, and humanitarian claims are typically an afterthought.Footnote 14 Although on the day of the attacks Trump claimed to be liberating the Iranian people, he warned a few weeks later that a “whole civilization will die” if the Strait of Hormuz was not opened by his deadline.Footnote 15

The second indicator is previous behavior. Has the agent previously undertaken humanitarian actions that suggest that its intervention is likely to be humanitarian? Although it is often assumed that only legitimate agents can undertake humanitarian intervention, the history of humanitarian intervention is littered with cases of states that are far from being liberal democracies intervening for humanitarian purposes. These include Tanzania’s intervention in Uganda in 1979 and the Nigerian-led interventions in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s.Footnote 16 The human rights violations and growing authoritarianism of the Trump and Netanyahu regimes internally do not preclude the possibility that their states could in theory undertake humanitarian intervention. But their external behaviors—such as their recent foreign policies—suggest that this is highly unlikely. From the Israeli abuses in Lebanon and beyond to the ongoing U.S. support for major human rights abuses and genocidal policies in the Palestinian territories, as well as the Trump administration’s decimation of USAID, this indicator is very far from being met.

The third indicator is to examine the actor’s current behavior. Is the intervention suggestive of a humanitarian response? The answer is, again, unmistakably no. It was clear prior to the intervention in Iran that there would be major humanitarian repercussions with intervention, with commentators warning that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed and that there would be a potential food crisis arising from the insufficient transportation of fertilizer, as well as severe blowback for the global economy, which typically disproportionately affects the most vulnerable.Footnote 17 Moreover, the strikes have evidenced a very high tolerance of civilian casualties.Footnote 18 In addition to the striking of an elementary school in Minab, killing a reported 168 people including 110 children, there are reports of double-tap strikes (a strike followed by another one once aid workers arrive) and attacks on civilian infrastructure.Footnote 19 The war in Iraq also saw a high number of civilian casualties caused by the U.S.-led coalition. Yet the targeting, particularly in the early stages of the conflict, demonstrated much more restraint. Richard Myers, then chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “we’ll go to extraordinary lengths to protect non-combatants and civilians.”Footnote 20 According to Neta Crawford, a leading critic of the Iraq War, the United States did indeed go to some lengths to minimize civilian harm.Footnote 21

The Autocratic Way of War

The wrongness of war is not solely due to the violations of the principles of jus ad bellum or jus in bello. Wars can be problematic on other grounds, which lie outside these traditional criteria. For example, scholars have highlighted issues of wars being problematically continued (failing jus ex bello), being carried out by an illegitimate military (that, for instance, relies on unfair conscription), and treating one’s own civilians and soldiers wrongfully (violating internal jus in bello).Footnote 22 In what follows, I will argue that the war in Iran shows backsliding toward an autocratic way of war.Footnote 23 I will argue that the autocratic way of war has three central features: undemocratic and unaccountable decision-making about war, abdication of responsibilities, and revisionism of the prevailing international order.

The autocratic way of war contrasts with a more democratic approach to war fighting. This latter approach shows a greater attempt to be democratically accountable in the decision-making about war, to fulfill international humanitarian and remedial responsibilities that stem from the war, and to work within the core norms and institutions of the international system.Footnote 24 In the United States, this more democratic mode of war found expression somewhat in the Powell Doctrine (sometimes called the “Weinberger-Powell Doctrine”), which arose in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. It required, among other things, the use of force only as a last resort and with a clear objective; support from the American people and their elected representatives in Congress; and, on some readings, broad international support and the acceptance of international responsibilities.Footnote 25 The autocratic way of war, by contrast, has been adopted in notable wars by authoritarian states. For instance, undemocratic decision-making about war, abdication of responsibilities, and revisionism can, to varying degrees, be found in Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and war against Iran in the 1980s; the Russian wars in Ukraine and intervention in Syria; the second Nagorno-Karabakh war; and in the civil wars in Myanmar, Syria, and Sudan.Footnote 26 I will now argue that the United States shows backsliding toward each of the three features of the autocratic way of war in the intervention in Iran.

Undemocratic and Unaccountable Decision-Making

The first feature of the autocratic way of war is undemocratic and unaccountable decision-making about war. This includes a foreign policy decision-making structure that is highly centralized and personalized.Footnote 27 Authoritarians tend to marginalize foreign ministries, expert advisers, and traditional foreign policy procedures, instead relying heavily on meetings and decisions at the leader level. They also tend to avoid the participation of transnational civil society in formulating foreign policy.Footnote 28 For instance, Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade Kuwait was influenced by his paranoia, his fear of a conspiracy against him, and his messianic ambition for unlimited power, and he was also surrounded by a sycophantic leadership circle who were too scared of his brutality to challenge him, all of which led him to overestimate support in the Arab world for the invasion.Footnote 29

There has been backsliding toward undemocratic and unaccountable decision-making about war within the United States. Unlike the war in Iraq, the decision to go to war in Iran was domestically unpopular and lacked congressional approval.Footnote 30 Indeed, the weakening norms requiring presidents to seek congressional authorization for major foreign policy and military operations have been further eroded under the Trump administration.Footnote 31 Eschewing domestic and international accountability mechanisms, Trump has instead prioritized executive flexibility in a manner comparable to authoritarian states that avoid binding commitments that could constrain future action.Footnote 32

The war in Iran has been marked by vacillating, contradictory, and incessant rhetoric from the Trump administration, all of which has further enabled it to reduce democratic accountability. By giving multiple vague objectives, the Trump administration can start and stop fighting without admitting defeat, limiting subsequent political accountability. By contrast, in the war in Iraq, the stated objectives of disarming Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction and bringing democracy to Iraq were clearly not met once it was obvious that there had been no such weapons in the first place and when Iraq descended into civil war. It is hard to hold a leader accountable for achieving an objective when it is not clear to begin with what the objective is. This move to prioritize flexibility, Richard Fontaine argues, “reflects a new way of war … that inverts traditional thinking on the use of force.”Footnote 33 It is, according to Fontaine, the opposite of the Powell Doctrine.

The war in Iran is also highly personalized and centralized, with critical voices excluded from the decision-making process, and few internal checks and balances. The resignation letter of Joe Kent, the head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, claims that there was an “echo chamber” used to persuade Trump into “believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States” and that “there was a clear path to a swift victory.”Footnote 34 The 2003 war in Iraq was also highly personal for Bush, given the failures of his father to remove Saddam Hussein, and involved centralized decision-making, with the “neocons” being an essential part of the decision to launch the war. But a key difference between the two cases is that the Trump administration has continued to ignore the advice of strategic experts regarding Iran. Whereas with the war in Iraq there was a clear and thought-through strategy for the removal of Saddam Hussein (although not its aftermath), the decision to go to war in Iran lacked a discernible strategy and an obvious military objective. Military strategists have been deeply critical of the intervention in Iran, but the Trump administration has not listened to expert, critical voices, which act as a check on power.Footnote 35 As Max Boot argues, “There are good reasons why previous presidents were reluctant to become embroiled in a war with Iran. Trump has ignored all the caveats.”Footnote 36

Abdication of International Responsibility

Beyond these internal problems, the war in Iran demonstrates a complete abdication of international responsibility. This brings us to the second core feature of the autocratic way of war: the neglect of—and at times the open denial and contestation of—any meaningful sense of responsibility beyond one’s borders, including to fulfill humanitarian obligations and remedial responsibilities for the harm that they have caused.Footnote 37 For example, after its 2020 campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan (an authoritarian state dominated by the Aliyev family) subsequently blockaded the Lachin Corridor in 2022, depriving the population of food, medicines, and other basic necessities and essential services, and, following its 2023 offensive, has been accused by Freedom House of the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Armenians.Footnote 38 This was despite an earlier order by the International Court of Justice to ensure unimpeded movement along the corridor. Azerbaijan has also faced serious allegations of violating international humanitarian law, including accusations of war crimes, but, according to Amnesty International, these have not been effectively investigated.Footnote 39

Under Trump, the United States has backslidden significantly toward an abdication of international responsibilities. In addition to the high levels of civilian harm, the second Trump administration has removed senior military lawyers and judge advocates general, has abolished mechanisms designed to limit harm to civilians, and its 2026 National Defense Strategy omitted references to civilian protection and international law entirely. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claims that “stupid rules of engagement” interfere with efforts to “fight to win.”Footnote 40 Strikingly, there was no plan to deal with the devastating humanitarian effects of the war in Iran. This was, as Sam Vigersky argues, a clear policy choice. It did not simply stem from the destruction of USAID; the United States had undertaken humanitarian efforts since then.Footnote 41 Within weeks of the attacks, up to 3.2 million people had already been displaced, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had constricted operations at Dubai Humanitarian (a major logistics hub for aid).Footnote 42 The attacks also saw humanitarian organizations quickly facing much higher operating costs, leading “the hungry toward emergency” and “those already in emergency toward famine.”Footnote 43 Yet there was no attempt to provide emergency supplies to relieve damage caused by the choke points in the Strait of Hormuz, with no food assistance to countries nearing famine.Footnote 44 By contrast, in Iraq, there was at least a certain degree of humanitarian preparation alongside the military planning, with emergency supplies pre-positioned in warehouses across the Middle East in preparation for six hundred thousand refugees at the borders of Iraq, and the approval of $2.5 billion of aid within weeks of the invasion.Footnote 45

In Iraq, there was also some attempt to commit to stay and sort out the mess. This was famously encapsulated by Colin Powell’s invocation of a form of the “Pottery Barn rule”: “You break it, you own it.”Footnote 46 The Pottery Barn rule, although not ideal, is helpful to encourage states to at least accept some responsibility for the mess that they create beyond their borders.Footnote 47 The (partial) invocation of the rule in the war in Iraq demonstrated a sense of obligation to ameliorate the problems caused and to ensure long-term stability. The war in Iran, by contrast, demonstrates a very different approach from the Pottery Barn rule—encapsulated in the Silicon Valley mantra “Move fast and break things.”Footnote 48 There is no sense of responsibility to sort out the mess created—to fulfill remedial responsibilities.Footnote 49

Some have celebrated this.Footnote 50 It is better to break things and run, the argument goes, because it avoids a large-scale occupation, which was disastrous in Iraq. But the Pottery Barn rule does not need to be applied dogmatically. It does not necessarily require hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground. There are other ways to “fix” the mess that one creates, including financial support for local democratic actors and helping to rebuild and repair key infrastructure.

Revisionism of the International Order

The third key characteristic of the autocratic way of war is revisionism of the liberal international order.Footnote 51 Authoritarian states, when they can, contest international institutions that are perceived to constrain or rebuke their belligerency, especially those that promote the core values of the liberal international order, such as NATO, the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court, and instead aim to develop and legitimize alternative institutions or alliances concerned with the use of force, or simply go it alone.Footnote 52 In its 2022 war in Ukraine, for example, Russia has disregarded criticism from the United Nations General Assembly; denied responsibility for the war by blaming NATO, Ukraine, and the West for the war; and sought to work much more closely with other authoritarian states, including China, Iran, and North Korea.Footnote 53 The war in Iran, too, has clearly manifested revisionism, comprising a major affront to the liberal international order—or, more precisely, what remains of it—by disregarding its key actors, institutions, norms, and laws.

In the war in Iraq, there was a clear and concerted effort to present a semi-plausible legal justification for the action.Footnote 54 Though it was tenuous and ultimately baseless, a significant attempt was made to play by the rules of the international system, largely due to the efforts of Colin Powell at the United Nations.Footnote 55 The second Trump administration, by contrast, has demonstrated a far more overt disregard for international law.Footnote 56 The letter to the United Nations attempting to justify the war in Iran under Article 51 is amateurish, with no shred of legal seriousness.Footnote 57 There was not a sincere effort to justify the decision to launch the war according to the laws and norms of the international system. And, like Iraq, it is likely to create a negative precedent that further erodes the prohibition on the use of force.Footnote 58

The war in Iran also goes still further in its contestation of the key alliances of the liberal international order. In the buildup to the Iraq War, members of the U.S. government famously lashed out at its ally France for making clear that it would veto the UN approval of the war in Iraq.Footnote 59 But the war in Iraq also saw bonds strengthen between the traditional allies of the United States and the United Kingdom. George W. Bush and Tony Blair commonly referred to each other as “friends,” and in addition to the support of the U.K. there was a “coalition of the willing” of over forty states—even if this coalition may be better described as the “coalition of the bribed and bullied.”Footnote 60 Further, the United Nations, despite not authorizing the war in Iraq, played a key role in the reconstruction of Iraq.

The war in Iran, by contrast, has been far more unilateral in nature and featured verbal attacks on NATO by Trump and members of his administration, a tense and uneasy relationship between Israel and the United States, no role foreseen for multinational organizations, and a sustained attack by Trump on previously key U.S. allies. This move toward the third element of the autocratic way of war is part of a general pattern of behavior by Trump. The two Trump administrations have consistently attacked key actors, institutions, norms, and laws of the liberal international order, and revisionism and unilateralism run rampant. As Richard Falk argues, “The Iran War, coming after the Venezuelan military operation, is a further sign that America’s support for internationalism has been replaced by a 21st-century variant of imperial geopolitics.”Footnote 61 This is starkly captured in Trump’s January 2026 interview with the New York Times. He stated that “I don’t need international law,” and the only limits on his global powers are his “own morality … It’s the only thing that can stop me.”Footnote 62

Conclusion

The 2003 war in Iraq was thoroughly unjust. It violated the key principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, demonstrated deep hubris, led to hundreds of thousands dying, and caused wider regional instability. The intervention in Iran is not only unjust in these ways but also wrong in further respects.

Wars are not simply wrong for failing to meet the traditional conditions of jus ad bellum and jus in bello in just war theory. They can be wrong for other failings as well: for being undemocratic internally, for abdicating humanitarian and remedial responsibilities during and after the war, and for being undertaken in a manner that intentionally weakens the rules and institutions of the prevailing international order. Through these failings, the autocratic way of war makes unjust wars even worse. The war against Iran, which demonstrates significant backsliding by the United States toward the autocratic way of war, is therefore not only unjust according to the criteria of just war theory. It is symptomatic of increasing autocratization globally and, as I have argued, wrong in these further ways.

Footnotes

I would like to thank Adrian Gallagher, Jonathan Gilmore, Fredrik Hjorthen, Hamid Talebian, and the editors of the journal for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. This essay was written while in receipt of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), grant number UKRI3306. I would like to thank the AHRC for their support.

References

NOTES

1 Abi McGowan, Molly Carlough, and Natalie Caloca, “A Guide to Trump’s Second-Term Military Strikes and Actions,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 3, 2026, www.cfr.org/articles/guide-trumps-second-term-military-strikes-and-actions.

2 Kevin Breuninger, “Trump CIA Chief Says Iran Nuclear Program Was ‘Severely Damaged,’ Countering Reports of U.S. Intel Assessment,” CNBC, June 25, 2025, www.cnbc.com/2025/06/25/trump-iran-intelligence-report-nato.html.

3 Hamidreza Zarifinia, “The Necessity of Humanitarian Intervention in Iran,” Times of Israel (blog), January 6, 2026, blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-necessity-of-humanitarian-intervention-in-iran/.

4 Reza Pahlavi, quoted in Canaan Lidor, “Iran Opposition Leader Calls US-Israel Strikes ‘Humanitarian,’” Jewish News Syndicate, February 28, 2026, www.jns.org/israel-news/iran-opposition-leader-calls-us-israel-strikes-humanitarian.

5 Donald Trump, quoted in Tom Bateman and Daniel Bush, “Six Key Lines from Trump’s Statement on Iran Strikes,” BBC News, February 28, 2026, www.bbc.com/news/articles/c620d3nnw80o. Various Republican figures have invoked humanitarian justifications. For instance, Don Bacon states that “after the regime just murdered approximately 50,000 Iranians, it is time to help the Iranian people get rid of the Ayatollah once and for all.” Don Bacon, quoted in “Peace through Strength: President Trump Launches Operation Epic Fury to Crush Iranian Regime, End Nuclear Threat,” White House, March 1, 2026, www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/peace-through-strength-president-trump-launches-operation-epic-fury-to-crush-iranian-regime-end-nuclear-threat.

6 Fernando R. Tesón, “Ending Tyranny in Iraq,” Ethics & International Affairs 19, no. 2 (September 2005), pp. 1–20.

7 Michael Schmitt, Tess Bridgeman, and Ryan Goodman, “Expert Q&A: Are U.S. Threats or Use of Force Against Iran Lawful?,” Just Security, February 21, 2026, www.justsecurity.org/132180/us-iran-war-strike/.

8 Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

9 Matt Murphy, Thomas Spencer, and Ghoncheh Habibiazad, “Tracking Recent US-Israeli Strikes on Iranian Infrastructure,” BBC, April 7, 2026, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2w0v19gw8o.

10 See, for instance, Marc Weller, “With Iran Attacks, President Trump Is Making the Use of Force the New Normal—and Casting Aside International Law,” Chatham House, March 4, 2026, www.chathamhouse.org/2026/03/iran-attacks-president-trump-making-use-force-new-normal-and-casting-aside-international.

11 Whitley R. P. Kaufman, “Motive, Intention, and Morality in the Criminal Law,” Criminal Justice Review 28, no. 2 (Autumn 2003), pp. 317–35.

12 Guillaume Duval, “Ten Questions about the War against Iran,” Institut Jacques Delors (blog), March 2, 2026. Likewise, the motives for George W. Bush’s war in Iraq were suggested to be to secure oil and to fulfill the legacy of his father, who had failed to remove Saddam Hussein twelve years previously.

13 James Pattison, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); and Alex J. Bellamy, “Motives, Outcomes, Intent and the Legitimacy of Humanitarian Intervention,” Journal of Military Ethics 3, no. 3 (2004), pp. 216–32.

14 Emile Hokayem, “The War against Iran,” Survival 68, no. 2 (April–May 2026), pp. 41–48.

15 “WATCH: Trump Announces U.S. Military Operations in Iran,” YouTube video, 8:31, posted by PBS NewsHour, February 28, 2026, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKqSH0OxhiM; and David Gritten, “Trump Condemned Over Threat That Iran’s ‘Civilisation Will Die,’” BBC News, April 7, 2026.

16 Wheeler, Saving Strangers; and International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect: Research, Bibliography, Background; Supplementary Volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), pp. 48–120.

17 Max Boot, “Trump Should Take the U.S. Military’s Warning on Iran Seriously,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 24, 2026, www.cfr.org/articles/trump-should-take-the-u-s-militarys-warning-on-iran-seriously.

18 “Iran: Where and How US-Israeli Strikes Are Harming Civilians,” Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, April 2, 2026, acleddata.com/report/iran-where-and-how-us-israeli-strikes-are-harming-civilians; and Ghazal Golshiri and Louis Imbert, “US and Israel Increasingly Target Iran’s Civilian Infrastructure,” Le Monde, April 5, 2026.

19 Tom Bateman and Imogen James, “International Law Experts Allege Violations in Iran War,” BBC News, April 3, 2026, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy91x2n29nlo; and Mohammad Mansour, “In Maps and Photos: Five Iranian Civilian Bridges at Risk of US Strikes,” Al Jazeera, April 6, 2026, aljazeera.com/economy/2026/4/6/in-maps-and-photos-five-iranian-civilian-bridges-at-risk-of-us-strikes.

20 Richard Myers, quoted in Neta C. Crawford, “Civilian Death and Injury in the Iraq War, 2003–2013,” Costs of War, March 2013, costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/sites/default/files/papers/Crawford-Civilian-Death-and-Injury-Iraq-War-2003-2013.pdf

21 Ibid.

22 Darrel Moellendorf, “Jus ex Bello,” Journal of Political Philosophy 16, no. 2 (2008), pp. 123–36; James Pattison, “The Legitimacy of the Military, Private Military and Security Companies, and Just War Theory,” European Journal of Political Theory 11, no. 2 (April 2012), pp. 131–54; and Brian Orend, The Morality of War, 1st ed. (Peterborough, On.: Broadview, 2006), pp. 127–37.

23 The term “autocratic way of war” comes from Marius Bales and Max Mutschler, “A New Autocratic Way of War? Autocracy, Precision Strike Warfare and Civilian Victimization,” Defence Studies 26, no. 1 (March 2026), pp. 103–26. Their own account, though, is narrow, focusing only on civilian harm. The account that I present is broader, drawing on recent work on authoritarian foreign policy: Daniel F. Wajner, Sandra Destradi, and Michael Zürn, “The Effects of Global Populism: Assessing the Populist Impact on International Affairs,” International Affairs 100, no. 5 (September 2024), pp. 1819–33; and Oisín Tansey, “The Foreign Policy of Authoritarian Regimes,” in Anne Wolf, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Authoritarian Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024). (Although Wajner and colleagues frame their account as “authoritarian populist,” it is authoritarianism that is central to their account, with similar features highlighted by accounts of authoritarian foreign policy, such as Tansey.) There are differences between authoritarian regimes; I focus on more personalist regimes, which tend to be more belligerent. See Jessica Weeks, “Strongman and Straw Men: Authoritarian Regimes and the Initiation of International Conflict,” American Political Science Review 106, no. 2, pp. 326–47.

24 Of course, several democracies, including the United States under Obama and Clinton, failed to be fully democratic in these regards. For instance, Obama did not receive explicit authorization for the 2011 intervention in Libya under the War Powers Resolution. Democracies vary in how much they follow the democratic ways of war, with some having certain autocratic features.

25 Caspar W. Weinberger, “The Uses of Military Power” (speech, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., November 28, 1984), pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/force/weinberger.html; and Christopher Preble, “The Powell Doctrine’s Wisdom Must Live On,” Atlantic Council, October 18, 2021, www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-powell-doctrines-wisdom-must-live-on/; and Kenneth J. Campbell, “Once Burned, Twice Cautious: Explaining the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine,” Armed Forces & Society 24, no. 3 (Spring 1998), pp. 357–74. On the latter point, Powell stated that “America must shoulder the responsibility of its power.” Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs 71, no. 5 (Winter 1992/93), pp. 32–45, at p. 33. The Powell Doctrine was hugely eroded by the George W. Bush administration, especially by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, with Cheney, according to Walter LaFeber, wanting to “go it alone, to have obligations to no one, to conduct foreign policy secretly . . . to use force easily and with bombastic threats, to ignore (or simply curse, sometimes profanely) members of Congress and informed critics.” Walter LaFeber, “The Rise and Fall of Colin Powell and the Powell Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 124, no. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 71–93, at p. 82. The war in Iran goes much further in these regards, though, as I will argue shortly.

26 Not all wars by authoritarian states will have all of these features fully; the picture is a general one. To be clear, the United States and Israel are not autocracies but “electoral democracies” according to the latest V-Dem report, having recently backslidden from being “liberal democracies.” See Marina Nord, David Altman, Tiago Fernandes, Ana Good God, and Staffan I. Lindberg, Democracy Report 2026: Unraveling the Democratic Era?, 10th ed. (Gothenburg, Sweden: V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, 2026), www.v-dem.net/publications/democracy-reports/.

27 Wajner et al., “Effects of Global Populism.”

28 Ibid.; and Tansey, “Foreign Policy of Authoritarian Regimes.”

29 Jerrold M. Post, “Saddam Hussein of Iraq: A Political Psychology Profile,” Political Psychology 12, no. 2 (June 1991), pp. 279–89; Jerrold M. Post, “The Defining Moment of Saddam’s Life: A Political Psychology Perspective on the Leadership and Decision Making of Saddam Hussein during the Gulf Crisis,” in Stanley A. Renshon, ed., The Political Psychology of the Gulf War: Leaders, Publics, and the Process of Conflict (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), pp. 49–66; and Daniel Chardell, “The Origins of the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait Reconsidered,” Texas National Security Review 6, no. 3 (2023), pp. 51–78.

30 James F. Jeffrey, “The War in Iran Could Become like the War in Ukraine: How America Can Avoid a Russian-Style Quagmire,” Foreign Affairs, March 27, 2026.

31 Scott R. Anderson, “Law and the Iran War, after the First 60 Days,” Lawfare, May 8, 2026, www.lawfaremedia.org/article/law-and-the-iran-war--after-the-first-60-days.

32 Richard Fontaine, “Trump’s Way of War: Iran, Venezuela, and the End of the Powell Doctrine,” Foreign Affairs, March 2, 2026. Authoritarian states do not want to constrain themselves with clear, binding international commitments that can lead to domestic repercussions if they are not seen as beneficial. See Tom Ginsburg, “Authoritarian International Law,” American Journal of International Law 114, no. 2 (April 2020), pp. 221–60, at p. 230.

33 Fontaine, “Trump’s Way of War.”

34 Paul Farrell, “Read the Scathing Resignation Letter from Trump’s Now Former Counterterrorism Chief: ‘We Cannot Make This Mistake Again,’” resignation letter from Joe Kent to Donald Trump, Independent, March 18, 2026, www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-kent-resignation-letter-full-trump-iran-war-b2940709.html. Kent’s claims were controversial since he also said that the echo chamber comprised “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media.”

35 Scott Waldman, Ben Johansen, and Sophia Cai, “‘He Just Chose Not to Listen,’” POLITICO, March 27, 2026, www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2026/03/27/irrationally-confident-in-their-standing-00849060.

36 Max Boot, “Trump’s Ambitious War Aims Can’t Be Achieved With Air Power Alone,” in Ray Takeyh, Elliott Abrams, Steven A. Cook, Linda Robinson, Max Boot, and Elisa Ewers, “Gauging the Impact of Massive U.S.-Israeli Strikes on Iran,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 28, 2026, www.cfr.org/articles/gauging-the-impact-of-massive-u-s-israeli-strikes-on-iran.

37 Wajner et al., “Effects of Global Populism.”

38 Freedom House, International Partnership for Human Rights, Democracy Development Foundation, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, Protection of Rights without Borders NGO, Law Development and Protections Foundation, and Truth Hounds, Why Are There No Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh? (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2024), freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2024/why-are-there-no-armenians-nagorno-karabakh; and Sheila Paylan and Sareta Ashraph, “Justice for the Victims of the Nagorno–Karabakh Conflict: Ongoing Accountability Efforts and the Path to the International Criminal Court,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 24, no. 1 (March 2026), pp. 135–148.

39 Amnesty International, “Azerbaijan: As Azerbaijani Forces Assume Full Control over Nagorno-Karabakh, It Must Respect and Protect the Rights of Local Ethnic Armenians,” EUR 55/7254/2023, September 29, 2023, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur55/7254/2023/en/; and Paylan and Ashraph, “Justice for the Victims of the Nagorno–Karabakh Conflict.”

40 Pete Hegseth, quoted in “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine Hold a Press Briefing,” March 2, 2026, www.war.gov/News/Trans/Tran/Article/4418959/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-dan/. See also Tom Dannenbaum, Rebecca Hamilton, Adil Ahmad Haque, Oona A. Hathaway, and Gabor Rona, “Over 100 International Law Experts Warn: U.S. Strikes on Iran Violate UN Charter and May Be War Crimes,” Just Security, April 13, 2026, www.justsecurity.org/135423/professors-letter-international-law-iran-war/. This disregard for international humanitarian law (IHL) follows the rhetoric of the first Trump administration, which openly advocated actions that were unambiguously major violations of IHL, including the use of torture and deliberately attacking cultural heritage sites, and proposed the intentional killing of family members of enemy combatants (specifically of the Islamic State) and repeatedly praised the deliberate killing of combatants hors de combat. Despite these proclamations, the first Trump administration was largely unsuccessful in carrying out these actions because of Trump’s lack of a clear plan for how he wanted to change IHL and the embeddedness of IHL in U.S. military doctrine and culture. See Stuart Ford, “Don Quixote or Darth Vader? President Trump’s Views on International Humanitarian Law,” Washington University Global Studies Law Review 20, no. 1 (2021), pp. 45–98. The second Trump administration has, however, engaged in a purge of military officers that it viewed as potentially disloyal, which may limit the ability of the U.S. military to oppose orders in violation of IHL.

41 Sam Vigersky, “Trump Needs a Humanitarian Plan for Iran and the Middle East—before It’s Too Late,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 24, 2026, www.cfr.org/articles/trump-needs-a-humanitarian-plan-for-iran-and-the-middle-east-before-its-too-late.

42 Sam Vigersky, “The Iran War Is Breaking Global Humanitarian Aid Efforts,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 12, 2026, www.cfr.org/articles/the-iran-war-is-breaking-global-humanitarian-aid-efforts.

43 Ibid.

44 Vigersky, “Trump Needs a Humanitarian Plan for Iran and the Middle East.”

45 Ibid.

46 Powell said, “Once you break it, you are going to own it” prior to the war as a warning of the consequences of going to war in Iraq. Colin Powell (discussion, Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen, Colorado, 2007), featured in “Ideas and Consequences,” Atlantic, October 2007.

47 On the most plausible understanding of the responsibilities to rebuild, it is those most capable that would do the rebuilding, funded by those most culpable for the war (which may not always be the belligerents). See James Pattison, “Jus Post Bellum and the Responsibility to Rebuild,” British Journal of Political Science 45, no. 3 (2015), pp. 635–61.

48 Karthik Sankaran, “Trump’s ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ War Slams into Economy,” Responsible Statecraft, March 6, 2026, responsiblestatecraft.org/war-ian-global-economy/.

49 The Islamabad Memorandum includes $300 billion for rebuilding Iran, but this is an economic incentive to secure a peace agreement (Iran originally wanted $400 billion in compensation). It is reported to involve only private money, rather than an acceptance of remedial responsibility on behalf of the Trump administration. See Andrew Mills, Maha El Dahan, and Parisa Hafezi, “Iran Deal Includes $300 Billion Fund, More Than Half of Which Already Committed, Source Says,” Reuters, updated June 17, 2026, www.reuters.com/business/finance/iran-deal-includes-300-billion-fund-more-than-half-which-already-committed-2026-06-16/.

50 Suzanne Nossel, “It’s Time to Retire the Pottery Barn Rule,” Foreign Policy, March 3, 2026; and Marc A. Thiessen, “The ‘Pottery Barn Rule’ Was a Disaster. Trump Just Buried It,” Washington Post, July 1, 2025, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/01/trump-iran-pottery-barn-rule-powell/.

51 Wajner et al., “Effects of Global Populism.”

52 Ibid.; and Tansey, “Foreign Policy of Authoritarian Regimes.”

53 “Putin Falsely Claims It Was West That ‘Started the War’ in Ukraine Almost a Year after He Ordered Invasion,” CBS News, updated February 21, 2023, www.cbsnews.com/news/putin-ukraine-war-speech-today-blames-us-nato-after-one-year-invasion/.

54 See, for instance, “Letter Dated 20 March 2003 from the Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations Addressed to the President of the Security Council,” S/2003/35, United Nations Documents, digitallibrary.un.org/record/490434?ln=en&v=pdf.

55 LaFeber, “Rise and Fall of Colin Powell and the Powell Doctrine.”

56 Dannenbaum et al., “Over 100 International Law Experts Warn.”

57 Brian Finucane, “An Unserious Justification for an Unnecessary War: Assessing the U.S. ‘Article 51’ Letter to U.N. on Iran War,” Just Security, March 18, 2026, www.justsecurity.org/134290/us-article-51-letter-united-nations/. The State Department later released a more detailed statement, but this was not until at least two months after the start of the war and the statement was highly confused legally and analytically. See Brian Finucane, “On the State Department Memorandum ‘Operation Epic Fury and International Law,’” Just Security, April 24, 2026; and Reed D. Rubinstein, “Operation Epic Fury and International Law,” U.S. Department of State, April 21, 2026.

58 Finucane, “An Unserious Justification for an Unnecessary War.”

59 Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, is reported to have wanted to “punish France” and to “ignore Germany.” Condoleezza Rice, quoted in Philip H. Gordon, “‘Punish France, Ignore Germany, Forgive Russia’ No Longer Fits,” Brookings, September 1, 2007, www.brookings.edu/articles/punish-france-ignore-germany-forgive-russia-no-longer-fits/.

60 Randall Newnham, “‘Coalition of the Bribed and Bullied?’ U.S. Economic Linkage and the Iraq War Coalition,” International Studies Perspectives 9, no. 2 (May 2008), pp. 183–200.

61 Richard Falk, “An Unlawful War,” Nation, March 4, 2026, www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-iran-war-regime-change-tehran/.

62 Donald Trump, quoted in David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’,” New York Times, updated January 10, 2026.