Were the United States and Israel wrong not to have warned their European allies of the outbreak of war against Iran? Were the Europeans right not to want to participate in the defense of the Strait of Hormuz? Are law and force irreconcilable concepts? These are the questions posed by Pierre Rigoulot, a specialist on North Korea and totalitarian regimes.
Please forgive the reference to French politician Marcel Déat’s famous article that appeared on the front page of L’Œuvre on May 4, 1939. We are not suggesting that we might be, as he was, just a few months away from a new world war. Pacifism does not drive the following lines. Trump is not Hitler, Poland is not Iran, and 2026 is not 1939. We do believe, however, that the desire to stay out of a distant conflict—one deemed at once Middle Eastern, illegal, and illegitimate—echoes, roughly speaking, the comfortable self-deception displayed by the neo-socialist leader, future head of the RNP (Popular National Rally), Vichy Minister of Labor, and resident of Sigmaringen.
Nor are we lecturing French leaders who are trying to appear valiant yet prudent by sending, not far from the war zone but not too close either, our fine aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, assuring our allies on the Arabian Peninsula or the island of Cyprus of our protection, and calling for a meeting of the UN Security Council—as if the UN were not completely discredited, its Security Council in particular. After the Security Council imposed heavy sanctions on North Korea, an ally of Iran that once sought to acquire nuclear weapons—just as the Islamic Republic does today—two of its key members, China and Russia, are blithely flouting their own sanctions! These sanctions remain in place, at least on paper. But Russia has changed its policy; it is supplying cutting-edge technology to Pyongyang and importing thousands of North Korean soldiers to bolster its aggression against Ukraine, while the North Korean state pockets most of their pay, thereby contributing to its costly pursuit of nuclear weapons.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says nothing in the meantime, or is primarily concerned with climate hazards. How can we believe that the institution he leads can speak for international law, in the name of which the launch of a U.S. attack should be condemned!
No doubt those who call for respect for international law are not content merely to denounce an undertaking that has not been endorsed by the United Nations.
They also rely on a kind of moral common sense: if we turn our backs on international law (more bluntly: if we do without the authorization of the United Nations), they argue, it means that the simple balance of power defines relations between states. Where are we headed, they ask? Mr. Trump believes he is the strongest; he therefore attacks, or threatens to attack, Greenland, Canada, Venezuela, or Iran. Are we not now living in a world of brutes, a world of outlaws? Does the law even exist anymore? Force, and force alone, prevails.
This accusation of disregarding international law in favor of force alone obviously does not hold water. International law is never exercised outside the context of power dynamics. It qualifies power, clarifies it, limits it, and removes it from arbitrariness, but it does not nullify it. And force is not in itself hostile to the law. Better yet: it sometimes intervenes to reinforce it and to protect it against those who knowingly undermine it. The Islamic Republic of Iran was among the most active, the most militant, and the most relentless states in undermining and destroying Western democracies and Israel, which are constitutional states. It is therefore not wise to pit force against law in the current Iranian crisis, but rather to ensure—contrary to Blaise Pascal, who did not believe this possible—that the law is strong and that force serves justice, that is, the rule of law and the defense of a society that respects human rights—matters about which North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the contrary, could not care less.
Commentators generally do not stop there and, like our own French government, they express their dissatisfaction at not having been warned of Donald Trump’s war plans. One may indeed regret this, but one may also wonder whether being let in on the secret would have served any purpose other than to throw a wrench in the works of the U.S. military. One need only note the malicious glee with which Donald Trump’s proposal to form a coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz was received. It hardly goes beyond this trivial remark: “We weren’t warned… let him figure it out himself.”
But is this about taking pleasure in American difficulties as a form of revenge for not having been let in on the secret, or about refusing to participate in a military intervention against a totalitarian regime that has been dreaming of wiping the State of Israel off the map for years? A regime that also dreams of sweeping away liberal democracies while supporting Putin’s Russia against Ukraine by supplying it with thousands of drones?
Is this really what we want? Our military aid to Ukraine is already limited. Do we really want to make matters worse by saving the Russian regime while it orchestrates a war effort against a European country? Would we lose anything by making Donald Trump indebted to us in the current operation against Iran by helping to protect freedom of navigation?
U.S. military intervention is undoubtedly open to criticism in some respects, both military (the inadequate protection of friendly nations) and political (the apparent lack of coordination with the Iranian opposition). But one thing is certain: the enemy is not Donald Trump. It is the Islamist Iranian state, its propensity for terrorist operations, its hatred of Jews, its religious fanaticism, its resort to barbaric repression against its own people, and its alliances against democracies with Russia and North Korea.
It is well worth swallowing this bitter pill: having been kept out of a war we would not have participated in anyway!
Born in Paris in 1944, professor of philosophy, director of the Institute of Social History, an anti-totalitarian think tank founded by Boris Souvarine, Pierre Rigoulot has published in particular: Des Français au goulag, (Fayard 1984), Les Aquariums de Pyongyang (Laffont 2000). He has just published with Florence Grandsenne Quand Poutine se prend pour Staline (Buchet-Chastel 2023). Pierre Rigoulot holds a doctorate in political science.