Dirty work (II)
Responding to the US attack on Iran, Berlin again approves a violation of international law. Israeli strikes had already put an end to ongoing talks. Has the future of diplomacy been blighted?
BERLIN/WASHINGTON/TEHRAN (own report) – The US has joined Israel’s war of aggression on Iran. And by approving US strikes, the German government has endorsed a second violation of international law within ten days. “Our aim continues to be to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” reads a joint statement issued by Germany, France and the United Kingdom yesterday, Sunday. It demands that Tehran should immediately engage in talks leading to an agreement that addresses all concerns associated with its nuclear programme. Yet Iran had already been in the midst of negotiations with the United States until those talks were stopped by Israel’s attacks. On top of this, a negotiating process with the three largest Western European states was also wrecked by the US bombing raids. In fact, the assaults by Israel and by the US have not only violated and further undermined international law but have also discredited diplomacy in general. They have seriously damaged the future of diplomatic efforts worldwide. Moreover, Israel’s pursuit of “decapitation”, the elimination of an adversary’s military and political leaders through targeted assassinations, only worsens what is becoming common practice in warfare. As for the use of violence to enforced denuclearisation, experts now believe Iran will want to accelerate its push for nuclear armament as the only way to prevent such attacks in future.
Yet another bogus pretext for war
It is nothing new that the reasons given for starting a war are untrue. Both Israel and the United States have again used a pretext for their attacks on Iran that is not supported by the facts. Israel tried to justify its act of war on 13 June by claiming that Iran was only “weeks away” from possessing a nuclear bomb.[1] US President Donald Trump repeated the claim on the eve of the US bombing campaign on Sunday. The pretext contradicts assessments already presented by US intelligence agencies. For example, on 25 March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated to lawmakers that the US intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” and that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003.”[2] Senator Chris Murphy announced on Sunday that he had been informed last week about the findings of the US intelligence services, according to which Iran was “not close” to building a deliverable nuclear weapon.[3] Rather, there was thought to be a real prospect of success in the US-Iran talks. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not answer the question on Sunday as to whether there was any new intelligence regarding possible Iranian nuclear weapons.[4] Gabbard suddenly changed her assessment, claiming on Saturday that she agreed with Trump’s view that Iran could complete its first bomb “within weeks”.[5]
A new method of warfare
Fabricating reasons for going to war and taking a flexible approach to facts in order to legitimise military attacks is nothing new for Western powers. A relatively new form of warfare, however, is being pursued by Israel following a US model. On 3 January 2020, the US – then under Trump’s first administration – had the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, assassinated by drone strike in Baghdad.[6] The ‘decapitation’ of leaders has become a model for the Israeli armed forces. So far the IDF have killed Hamas Politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and numerous other political and military leaders of those two organisations, using drones, missiles and bombs. They have now used the same method on a large scale to eliminate Iranian leaders. In 2022, the legal services of the German Bundestag concluded that it was permissible to assassinate military leaders. The same legal stance is taken towards political leaders if they can be said to be involved in a military chain of command. This would then apply to, say, Russian President Vladimir Putin.[7] Since targeted assassinations of military and political leaders by the West have become a common means of warfare, there is every chance that they will be used to take out Western leaders in the future.
Diplomacy under attack
The increasing brutalisation of foreign relations is reflected in the way Israel and the US are handling diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict with Iran. Israel attacked Iran while negotiations with the US were moving forward. The 13 June strikes took place even though concrete talks between Iranian and US delegations had been scheduled for 15 June in Oman. And, subsequently, the US bombing raid on Sunday went ahead even though Trump had announced a two-week deadline for re-starting negotiations, which was far from expiring. Moreover, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, had held negotiations with his counterparts from Germany, France and Great Britain in Geneva on Friday, which German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul had described as “serious”. Iran was ready to talk about “all the fundamental issues”, Wadephul was quoted as saying.[8] Any talks with the Europeans were then scuttled by Washington’s decision to strike yesterday. In other words, first Israel and then the US have demonstrated that they use talks merely to distract their adversaries and catch them unprepared. This behaviour has dramatically narrowed any diplomatic scope for resolving or at least containing not only war with Iran but, of course, any conflicts in the future.
‘Negotiate immediately!’
Despite all this, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded on Sunday that Iran “immediately” start fresh talks with the US and Israel in order to “reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict”.[9] Merz knows full well that Iran was actually in talks with the US when Israel upended the process with its decapitation attack. He also knows that Iran was in talks with three EU states when the US blocked this path to a solution with its big bombs. Whether his suggestion that Tehran should now be caught out for a third time is meant seriously or is intended as a cynical joke is unclear. Merz has praised Israel’s war of aggression against Iran with drastic words: “Israel is doing the West’s dirty work for it.”[10]
Damaged, not destroyed
There have long been indications that further US attacks are in the pipeline. Experts were speculating yesterday that the bunker-buster bombs dropped on the Fordo enrichment plant, located deep underground, had damaged but failed to destroy the target. This was then confirmed on Sunday by an unnamed US government official to the New York Times.[11] After Trump’s claim that sites were “totally obliterated”, US Vice President JD Vance only say he was very “confident” that Iran’s nuclear programme and its development of a bomb had been “substantially delayed” – not now repeating Trump’s boast that the nuclear facilities were destroyed.[12] This makes further bombing raids, especially on the Fordo facility, quite likely.
The only credible deterrent
In any case, experts expect the war to escalate further. The Iranian leadership “knows that it cannot win this war,” says Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), “but wants to ensure that the US and Israel also lose.”[13] Vali Nasr, an Iran expert who teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, explains that Tehran’s conclusion from the attacks by Israel and the United States is that deterrence with the help of missiles and armed proxies such as the Lebanese Hezbollah does not work. The only reliable means of stopping future attacks is nuclear armament. “Although Trump has sought to eliminate the nuclear threat from Iran, he has now made it far more likely that Iran will become a nuclear state,” Geranmayeh concludes.[14]
[1] Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Mohammad Eslami: Israel may have just pushed Iran across the nuclear line. aljazeera.com 13.06.2025.
[2] Branko Marcetic: Tulsi said Iran not building nukes. One senator after another ignored her. responsiblestatecraft.org 18.06.2025.
[3], [4] newsticker. nytimes.com 22.06.2025.
[5] Sofia Ferreira Santos: Tulsi Gabbard now says Iran could produce nuclear weapon ‘within weeks’. bbc.co.uk 21.06.2025.
[6] See: An Assassination and its Consequences.
[7] Kurzinformation: Zur völkerrechtlichen Zulässigkeit einer gezielten Tötung von Staatsoberhäuptern in einem internationalen bewaffneten Konflikt. Deutscher Bundestag, Wissenschaftliche Dienste. Berlin, 10.06.2022.
[8] See: Drecksarbeit.
[9] Sicherheitskabinett der Bundesregierung tagt nach Luftschlägen der USA gegen Irans Nuklearprogramm. Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung 22.06.2025.
[10] See: Drecksarbeit.
[11] Eric Schmitt. nytimes.com 22.06.2025.
[12] Maggie Haberman: Vance says Iran’s nuclear program has been ‘substantially delayed.’ nytimes.com 22.06.2025.
