The emperor is relishing his nakedness

LAHORE:

The mask did not slip on February 28 when the American–Israeli axis unleashed its assault on Iran in a naked act of aggression against one of the few remaining defiant rivals on the imperial periphery. That mask had already been lying on the floor for years. What is new is that the emperor is now relishing his nakedness.

The emperor knows he is naked, and the court knows it too. But he strides forward, naked, and expects the world to applaud the spectacle.

The self-proclaimed guardian of international law chose to inaugurate its latest war of choice against Tehran, just as the prospect of peace in the nuclear talks was beginning to come into view, not with diplomacy, nor even with the weary choreography of deterrence, but by raining fire on a family home in the middle of a fasting month.

The first scene gave away the script after the first strikes went for the country’s jugular by targeting the compound of Iran’s Supreme Leader in the heart of Tehran. The leader, revered not only as Iran’s head of state but as a widely respected Shia jurist across the region and beyond, was martyred alongside members of his family, including his 14-month-old granddaughter, on the tenth day of the holy month of Ramazan.

Congress has also lent its formal blessing to the war.

One might expect such authorisation to restore a sense of constitutional gravity to American power. Instead, it sharpens the contradiction. The rituals of legality now accompany acts that openly violate the very legal order Washington claims to defend: assassinations of foreign leaders, bombardment of civilian infrastructure, and strikes deep inside the territory of a sovereign state.

The contradiction sits in plain sight. The United States, the chief architect and self-appointed custodian of the post-1945 order, is now treating that order as something closer to a suggestion than a binding framework. The emperor, as the old idiom goes, has no clothes.

What might have been another lopsided intervention now looks like a stress test for the entire architecture of the post-1945 order: Are the rules meant to restrain power, or merely to discipline those who lack it?

Meanwhile, mounting evidence suggests that US and Israeli forces are striking civilian infrastructure across Iran. Analysts at CNN, who have examined satellite imagery and weapons signatures, concluded that the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab was “likely [carried out by] the United States military”.

Munitions experts note that the school and a nearby IRGC facility were hit in the same attack window. Iranian authorities report that 165 children and teachers were killed there, a figure now reinforced by video documentation and forensic review.

The pattern extends beyond schools. The World Health Organisation has verified at least 13 strikes on hospitals and clinics since the US–Israel campaign began. Four medical workers have been killed and dozens more wounded. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus issued a stark reminder that “healthcare must be protected and not attacked.”

Several medical facilities have already been damaged or destroyed. In Tehran, a trauma centre had to be evacuated after nearby strikes rendered the area unsafe.

For critics, none of this arrives as a shock. The incidents fit neatly into a longer pattern that has followed American wars for decades.

Int’l law and global order undermined

Meanwhile, the aggression has drawn anger across much of the world as it tears straight through the legal framework Washington claims to defend.

The facts on the ground are stark. US warplanes strike a sovereign capital. Targeted assassinations remove a head of state and his heir apparent. Schools are bombed while Washington insists there were “no intentional attacks on civilians”.

UN experts have warned that the pattern shows “zero respect” for diplomacy and international norms. If the UN Charter still carries meaning, Article 2(4) forbids precisely this type of aggression. Violations of immunity protections for state officials and attacks on protected sites could also breach treaties such as the Convention on Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons.

An analysis in The Hill has warned that the current administration’s admiration for colonial empires and its disdain for multilateral rules risk “dismantling the very qualities that once made US leadership attractive”.

“If the US continues down this path, the Trump presidency will not merely mark a contentious chapter in domestic politics. It will be remembered as the moment when America forfeited the moral authority that sustained its global influence, thereby accelerating a relative decline that no amount of military or economic power can easily arrest,” warns author Brahma Chellaney in the piece.

Meanwhile, allies have noticed the shift. Across Europe and Asia, from NATO capitals to Japan, officials increasingly speak of “strategic drift”. Some NATO ministers reportedly regard Washington as a partner requiring constant reassurance.

Legal experts unanimously note that the US-Israeli strikes on Iran were launched without UN Security Council approval or any self-defence justification. No credible legal argument or evidence of an immediate Iranian attack was ever presented.

Rights groups and politicians are demanding investigations. HRW urged an immediate US inquiry into the school bombing and prosecutions of anyone responsible for this “unlawful attack,” warning it may be “among the deadliest war crimes against civilians by US forces in years”.

US Senator Chris Van Hollen likewise labelled the massacre “the hallmarks of a war crime”.

Beyond the Charter itself, attacks on consulates and protected persons violate specific treaties. Striking Iran’s diplomatic buildings and leadership flagrantly breaks conventions protecting envoys and civilians. In recent days, even US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and other commentators have publicly warned that these actions run “roughshod over both the US Constitution and international law”.

Legal scholars say the American–Israeli assault on Iran is raising serious questions about the international legal framework meant to regulate the use of force between states, with some arguing that the attacks may amount to a crime of aggression.

International law, built on treaties and conventions governing relations between states, is intended to restrict when force can be used. The United Nations Charter clearly prohibits unprovoked attacks.

“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,” the founding document of the UN says.

Rebecca Ingber, a professor at Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University and a former adviser to the US Department of State, told Al Jazeera that the prohibition on the use of force remains a “bedrock” principle of international law with only narrow exceptions.

“States may not use force against the territorial integrity of other states except in two narrow circumstances — when authorised by the UN Security Council or in self-defence against an armed attack,” said Ingber.

She warned that repeated reliance on military force risks weakening the fragile legal order established after World War II.

“The prohibition on the use of force is a relatively recent innovation in the span of things. This rule is policed through the actions and reactions of states, and it feels fragile right now,” she said. “Do we want to go back to a world where states could use force as a tool of policy?”

The Trump administration has justified the war by claiming Iran posed an imminent threat through its missile and nuclear programmes, arguing that the campaign is meant to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime”.

Legal experts, however, question whether that threshold has been met, noting that in international law imminence refers to a threat that is immediate and overwhelming.

According to Reuters, Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack US forces first.

Trump has also framed the assault as an effort to bring “freedom” to the Iranian people after a deadly crackdown on protests earlier this year, even encouraging demonstrators at the time to seize government buildings and promising that “help is on the way”.

However, legal experts say humanitarian intervention would require explicit authorisation from the UN Security Council.

Domestic legitimacy gap

Meanwhile, the conflict has also exposed divisions inside the United States itself.

Public opinion surveys show broad opposition to the war. Critics point out that the president announced the campaign not in Congress or before the nation but through a social media message shortly after 2:30 AM.

A war declared like a midnight tweet does little to strengthen the appearance of democratic deliberation. The image that emerges is a government escalating military conflict abroad while a significant portion of its own population questions the entire premise.

War as spectacle

The American war on Iran also unfolds within the familiar logic of war as spectacle. When tensions build at home – economic inequality, political paralysis, social anger – external conflict often provides a convenient stage.

Screens fill with images of missiles, air defence systems lighting up the night sky, and triumphant briefings from officials. The flag returns to the centre of the frame.

Political theorists warned long ago about the aestheticisation of politics. Guy Debord described the “integrated spectacle,” a system in which dramatic enemies and crises appear on cue, allowing deeper contradictions within society to slip temporarily out of sight.

The Iranian campaign fits this pattern almost too neatly. Trump’s slogan “America First”, embraced by far-right movements across the world, revives an older imperial reflex: loudly proclaim national self-interest while still invoking universal principles when convenient.

Observers also note how anger over corruption or inequality inside the United States often drifts away from the structures that produce it. The Epstein scandal exposed disturbing rot within elite networks, yet public outrage quickly scattered into conspiracy theories and personalised villains rather than sustained structural scrutiny.

War offers a more convenient narrative. Bombing a foreign adversary condenses diffuse frustration into something simpler and politically useful: the old story of us against them.

The conflict now unfolding around Iran carries implications far beyond a single battlefield.

Every strike that disregards legal restraints chips away at the belief that international rules still matter. When powerful states behave as if the law no longer applies to them, they invite a harsher world governed by suspicion and force.

The United States still possesses unmatched military capabilities. What it risks losing are the less visible foundations of influence: trust, alliances and the perception of legitimacy.