But Iran, a 5,000-year-old civilization, also draws from a longer pre-Islamic civilizational identity. At the centre of this pre-Islamic Iranian narrative lies Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian empire – the Achaemenid King of Kings (Shahanshah), whose empire ruled Persia (and most of the Middle East) for over 200 years, from 559 BCE to 330 BCE, until conquered by Alexander the Great.  Animated by a desire to restore the civilisational grandeur of Iran whilst adopting certain Western ideas of progress around technology and science, the Shah, in 1971, convened a truly epic ceremony. He invited a delegation of world leaders and celebrities to honour his claim to a 2,500-year monarchical lineage back to Cyrus the Great. His vision was to build a 'Great Civilisation' (tamaddun-i bozorg).

Although the starting point of the three narrative arcs differs - 1979 for the US, 1992 for Israel, and 1953 for Iran - all three protagonists draw a straight line from Biblical times and Islam’s succession battle to justify today’s attacks. 

If any war can be narratively constructed to span millennia, are there any ethical parameters left to judge a war's justification objectively?

The Ethics of War 

Several ethical frameworks can be used depending on one’s reasoning or theoretical underpinning to assess a war, namely, categorical, consequentialist, realist frameworks, and Just War Theory.

Some religious traditions, pacifist movements, and non-violence frameworks reject war outright on categorical grounds: states may not initiate violence against other states when the threat is speculative. Moreover, regime change by force is inconsistent with the dignity and self-determination of peoples. The 2026 Iran war does not, therefore, meet the categorical viewpoint’s criteria.

Consequentialist frameworks weigh a war's likely consequences through cost-benefit analysis: civilian casualties, economic disruption, precedent effects (e.g. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan). In the case of the 2026 Iran war, the balance is weighted toward the real costs of the war since the avoided harm (Iran’s nuclear weapons’ use) is speculative while the inflicted harm, i.e. civilian deaths, regional war, oil disruption, financials costs, is real. As such, for consequentialists, this war is not justified.

Realist ethical frameworks see states as moral agents. For them, states need to exercise foresight and wisdom, and must ask: will the 2026 war strengthen or weaken US and Israeli security over a 10–20-year horizon? From their standpoint, the war is detrimental to long-term interests as it risks militarizing the Gulf and eroding the counter-proliferation regime.

Just War Theory, which covers the lifecycle of armed conflict, is arguably the central ethical framework to assess wars. It encompasses jus ad bellum, right to war, as well as jus in bello, right in war (i.e. humanitarian law), and jus post bellum, which focuses on justice, reconstruction, and obligations after conflict. 

Jus ad bellum, centred on a set of six conditions, is particularly suited to review and assess the ethical basis of the start of the 2026 Iran war.

1. Just Cause
Is there a real reason for war?

Just cause is the canonical principle which justifies war as self-defence against an armed attack. Whilst many shifting narratives compete to rationalize the 2026 attacks, the predominant one centres on the prevention of Iran’s ability to build, acquire, or use a nuclear weapon. This is a preventive cause rather than a pre-emptive cause. There was no ongoing Iranian armed attack on either Israel or the United States at the moment of the 28 February strikes. In fact, the US had unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA process in 2018, reportedly ‘obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity’ in June 2025 and attacked Iran again in February 2026 whilst satisfactory negotiations were underway around the nuclear issue. The case for just cause is therefore weak.

2. Legitimate authority
Was the decision made by the authorized body or leader of a state?

In the case of the United States, the authority is constitutionally shared between President and Congress – so far Congress has not declared war. In the Israeli case, the Security Cabinet approved the operation. In Iran’s case, the Supreme National Security Council approved retaliation under the authority vested in the new Interim Leadership Council. Legitimate authority may require further domestic consent, particularly in democracies, either though legislative action or an electoral process.

3. Right intention
Is the goal to bring peace?

Right intention is the requirement that the stated cause is the actual cause, and that war is not pursued for reasons of vengeance, expansion, or cruelty. The US language around civilizational annihilation, return to the ‘Stone Age’, and other threats and expletives posted by the President Trump, as well as revenge-framing language from Israel, complicates the case for right intention.

4. Last resort
Have all other methods failed?

Last resort requires that peaceful means must have been exhausted. On 27 February, Oman’s Foreign Minister publicly stated that a ‘breakthrough’ in nuclear negotiations had been reached and that peace was ‘within reach’. The 28 February operation began less than twenty-four hours later.  Based on the evidence, this clearly did not constitute a last-resort scenario.

5. Proportionality
Will war cause more harm than good overall?

At the ad bellum stage, proportionality asks whether the expected overall good of the war is greater than the expected overall evil. This is where the nebulous, ever-shifting motives for the war prevent rational assessment. A full-scale, regime-change war - with its continuing regional consequences, civilian casualties on all sides, disruption of global energy markets, and precedent-setting weakening of the UN Charter - is difficult to reconcile with a stated aim of counter-proliferation that was, literally, already underway. The case for proportionality appears tenuous.

6. Likelihood of success
Are the aims achievable – or will they lead to a status quo or worst?

On the nuclear front, the June 2025 operation’s results (i.e. obliteration of Iran’s nuclear capacity) have been disputed and the whereabouts of a stockpile of some 200 kg of enriched uranium are unknown or only partially known. Despite the decimation of Iran’s leadership, regime change has not occurred, and Mojtaba Khamenei’s fragile succession, has, if anything, consolidated the revolutionary regime and its institutions. In the absence of clear goals and metrics, and amid a constant flux of cyclothymic official statements, the likelihood of success seems low, given that success itself was undefined, re-interpreted, or unrealistic from the start.

In sum, by the standards of jus ad bellum and other ethical frameworks, Operation Epic Fury is morally unjustified.

Jus in bello, right in war, imposes two main tests on belligerent conduct: discrimination (i.e. combatants and objects only, not civilians) and proportionality (i.e. incidental civilian harm must not be excessive in relation to concrete and direct military advantage). Attacks on civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, civilian infrastructure and cultural heritage sites in Iran evidence US violations of humanitarian law, just as Israel’s targeting of Lebanon does. The sensitivity of potential attacks on nuclear sites is carefully monitored given the risk of radiological consequences on civilians. Finally, Iran’s retaliation on third states, i.e. Gulf states’ territories, people, civilian infrastructure, and commercial shipping, raises discrimination and proportionality issues symmetrical to those raised by the war’s initiators.

Jus in bello or the humanitarian conduct of all three parties, including Iran’s retaliation on Gulf states - particularly those not formally aligned with Israel, violates humanitarian law.

International Law and Realpolitik

Given the subjective narratives at play and the nuanced ethical dimensions of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, can international law provide further clarity? Is the February 28, 2026, war lawful?

The United Nations Charter

Based on the extract below of the UN Charter’s article 2(4), which prohibits the use of force against another state, the war is illegal.

Article 2, United Nations (UN) Charter

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

There are only two recognized exceptions to Article 2(4): self-defence under Article 51 against an actual or imminent armed attack, or authorization by the Security Council.

Article 51, UN Charter

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 51 Applied to the US and Israel

There is consensus among some 100 international law professors, and law associations, including in the US, that neither exception applies to this war. Iran did not attack Israel or the US first, the Security Council never authorized force, and the ‘imminent threat’ argument (i.e. Iran’s nuclear program) does not meet the traditional Caroline-test centred on imminence. The Caroline test, articulated by US Secretary of State Daniel Webster in correspondence with the British government in 1841–1842, restricts the right of self-defence to cases showing a necessity of self-defence that is ‘instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation’ and requires that any action be proportional. The Pentagon’s own 1 March 2026 briefing to congressional staff conceded that Iran had no intent to strike US assets absent Israeli action.

US and Israel’s Self-defence Claim

The US State Department's legal adviser, and some scholars, counter-argued the February 2026 operations were not a new resort to force but a continuation of an existing armed conflict that began in June 2025. As such, the relevant law applicable to Operation Epic Fury is jus in bello (i.e conduct in war) rather than jus ad bellum (i.e. legality of entering into war). Based on that framing, no new self-defence justification is required. Moreover, they argue that Iran's nuclear progress, support for armed proxies, and prior missile exchanges constitute a cumulative armed-attack pattern that grounds self-defence.

Iran’s Article 51 Claim

Iran’s Article 51 claim is legally more straightforward, but not unproblematic. As the state that suffered an armed attack on its territory, Iran’s right to respond in self-defence is not contested. What is contested is the scope. Under customary limits, the response must be necessary (aimed at repelling the attack) and proportionate (limited to what is necessary). Iranian strikes on Israeli territory and on US bases directly supporting the operation fall inside the standard self-defence scope. However, strikes on commercial shipping, embassy compounds not belonging to belligerents, and territory of non-belligerent third states test the limits of Article 51 and raise the spectre of counter-retaliation measures exceeding the self-defence argument.

The Enforcement Problem

In International Relations (IR) theory we learn as first-year students about realism, power, and anarchy. ‘Anarchy’ encapsulates the recognition that at the global level, there is no supra-state authoritative body, no world government. Consequently, the United Nations is only as performant as the states that govern and finance it. International law, even when unambiguous on UN Charter or human rights violations, is structurally constrained by Realpolitik, by the reality of governance at the Security Council level.

Hence, despite the unlawful nature of the 2026 war on Iran, the Security Council, as a body, did not condemn the attacks.

A draft resolution co-sponsored by Russia, China, and Pakistan calling for an immediate ceasefire and condemning the attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, was defeated. Instead, Resolution 2817 (2026), was adopted on 11 March 2026 (13-0 votes, with Russia and China abstaining) [iv], condemning Iran's retaliatory strikes against neighbouring states. On 22 March, a non-binding General Assembly resolution was adopted (under the Uniting for Peace procedure) demanding an immediate halt to hostilities and recalling the Charter’s prohibition on the use of force.

In conclusion, this exploration of the narrative, ethical, and legal parametres that frame the 2026 Iran war uncovers fascinating insights. First, stories from the US, Israel, and Iran are powerful in cementing their domestic constituencies and creating a sanctioning environment for their actions, even when these stories draw a perfectly crafted fictional line across millennia. Civilizational and religious imaginary constructs offer citizens a powerful, emotional, liminal space enabling the expression or consolidation of state power. Stories can and do justify wars. In the words of Yuval Noah Harari [v]:

Human groups are defined more by the changes they undergo than by any continuity, but they nevertheless manage to create for themselves ancient identities thanks to their storytelling skills.
No matter what revolutions they experience, they can usually weave old and new into a single yarn.

Second, if narratives are inherently subjective, Just War Theory and other ethical frameworks provide more clarity to evaluate the moral basis for war. In this case there was none: the start of the war by the US and Israel is not justifiable on moral grounds. Moreover, all three parties failed to uphold an ethical standard in the conduct of war. Third, on the legal dimension, there is expert consensus that the 28 February initiation of war violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, yet the Security Council could not agree to adopt a resolution in this regard. The clarity of the legal diagnosis contrasts with the weakness of the enforcement architecture. This is neither new nor unique to this war. Limits on states are difficult to impose by states. Simply put, in the domain of ‘the maintenance of international peace and security’, there seems to be a principal-agent problem, perhaps by design.