Sunday, March 08, 2026
Elder of Ziyon
By Daled Amos
“Victory smiles on those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.”Italian Air Marshall Giulio Douhet, quoted by David Micah Stark in The Modern Character of War: A Reexamination of the Law of Armed Conflict
Those changes are in the process of happening now, right before our eyes.
Trump has described the ongoing American campaign as a “combat operation” rather than a formal war. Yet whatever you call it, this conflict is already raising questions about the modern laws of war as we know them: What does proportionality mean when a state targets civilians in countries that want to stay on the sidelines? When is a threat truly “imminent” in the age of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles? And how should democratic states respond to enemies who deliberately wage war through terrorism?
Iran Redefines Proportionality
But he soon backtracked in a post on X, claiming Iran only targets US bases:
But that is not true.
Civilian targets have also been hit: Dubai's main airport in the UAE, liquefied natural gas facilities in Qatar, the Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, the Bapco Energies refinery in Bahrain, and assorted ports and hotels in the Gulf. This is no accident. The attacks reflect a broader Iranian strategy that Iran threatened last month, as reported by the Wall Street Journal:
Ahead of the last round of nuclear talks in February, national security council chief Ali Larijani passed a letter to the U.S. via Oman saying Iran would no longer respond proportionally and would react aggressively to any attack, they said. “The Americans must be aware that if they wage a war this time, it will be a regional war.”Proportionality, a term regularly brought up to accuse Israel of violating international law whenever it responds to attacks, has so far been absent from discussion about the current conflict. But Iran is in fact attacking Arab countries that are not actively involved in the attack, and is firing at civilian targets as well.
How long will the international community sit back and accept this?
(It is important to distinguish between two very different uses of the word “proportionality.” In international law governing the conduct of hostilities, proportionality refers to the requirement that commanders avoid attacks in which expected civilian harm would be excessive relative to the concrete military advantage anticipated. Nothing about Israel’s evolving strategy changes that legal obligation. The shift being discussed here concerns a different concept: the older assumption that military responses should mirror the scale of the initial attack rather than aim to remove the broader threat. -EoZ)
The US Redefines "Imminent Threat"
Trump's initiation of this attack raises another issue under the law of war: imminent threat. Critics have claimed that there is none, but Trump has been adamant from the start:
Earlier Saturday, Trump said that the United States had faced “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” Tehran was continuing to work toward producing a nuclear weapon and development of “long-range missiles that … could soon reach the American homeland.”
This debate is part of a deeper problem. Traditionally, threats developed slowly and were visible well in advance. But today, nuclear programs, ballistic missile technology, and proxy terrorist networks operate on a very different timeline.
An Israeli consensus has developed: The Jewish state will have a continuous need to degrade the clerical regime’s proxies and home defenses, which could shield revitalized nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Threats no longer have to be imminent to be countered. [emphasis added]Israel does have to wait for an Iranian leader to have his finger on the button before reacting to the threat of a nuclear Iran. And the long history of Iranian hostility to the US, including the 1979 hostage crisis, the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers Bombing in Saudi Arabia, and the hundreds of US soldiers killed by Iranian EFPs and IEDs in Iraq, shows that the US is in a similar situation. Barton Swain rebuts the claim that Iran does not pose an imminent threat:
As for [Sen. Tim Kaine's] denial that the threat was “imminent,” I wonder what the word could mean: Iran has attempted to assassinate assorted American dignitaries, including the president. It funds terror groups across the Middle East and slaughtered 30,000 demonstrators a few weeks ago. Its rulers express Nazi-like ambitions of annihilating its enemies, even as they don’t bother to hide a mad hunger for long-range missiles and nuclear technology.
Waiting until the danger is literally moments away may no longer be a defensible strategy.
Israel Redefines Proportionality
Israel, meanwhile, is redefining proportionality in a different way.Unlike Iran, Israel is not holding its neighbors hostage in an attempt to blackmail the US into a draw. Amit Segal writes about what he calls The New Israeli Rules of Engagement, pointing out that "Proportionate’ responses are a thing of the past. Now we understand we can’t live with terrorists." Terrorism is a form of warfare that has yet to be adequately addressed by international law. It is a form of warfare that exploits the protections of international law while violating them. Before October 7, Israel limited itself to carefully calibrated strikes against Hamas that would avoid escalation. Instead, the strategy produced the opposite effect: attacks against Israeli civilians became a regular occurrence.
Israel came to the conclusion that you don't mow the grass; you remove it:
When you respond, overwhelm your foe. For years, the enemy fired rockets and Israel replied with “proportional” force. This normalized the firing on civilians, kidnapping and invasion. But this changed after Oct. 7. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah thought he was still playing by the old rules, launching a few rockets daily. It ended with his elimination, the decapitation of his organization, and the destruction of 80% of their missile stockpile.
This new approach does not only apply to proxies like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This policy also applies to their sponsor. Iran established and backed these threats and will have to be dealt with the same way:
The Jewish state can’t accept the existence in Iran of production facilities and thousands of ballistic missiles, with every launch sending half of Israel into shelters and threatening mass casualties. It can’t tolerate a regime that continues, even today, to fund its greatest enemies with more than a billion dollars annually.
The actions Iran is now taking against its neighbors, attacking airports, hotels, and refineries, demonstrate just how right Israel is.
Historically, war has always forced nations to revise the rules that govern it. Over the past week, we have seen Tehran demonstrate its own interpretation of “proportionality” by targeting civilian infrastructure and threatening to widen the war across the region. Israel, facing terrorists who don't even abide by international law, has found that the old doctrine of proportional responses only guarantees perpetual attack. Meanwhile, the US is confronting a similar dilemma of whether the concept of “imminent threat” can still apply in an era of nuclear proliferation, ballistic missiles, and terrorist proxies.
Let's face it. The character of war has changed. States confronting regimes that openly seek their destruction cannot wait for the perfect legal threshold before acting. It is time for international law to account for this new strategic reality where deterrence, preemption, and decisive force may be the only way to avoid catastrophe.
|
"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
 |
Buy
