In the early hours of February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched what President Trump called a “massive and ongoing” military campaign against Iran—codenamed Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel. Trump posted an eight-minute video to Truth Social at 2:30 am Eastern time, describing the operation as an effort to eliminate what he called “imminent threats” from “a wicked, radical dictatorship”. He urged Iranian civilians to “take over your government”.

By evening, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was dead—killed in the opening phase of the strikes, according to Israeli officials and later confirmed by Iranian state media, which announced 40 days of national mourning. Iran retaliated by firing drones and missiles at Israeli targets and US bases across the Gulf. At least 201 civilians were reported killed in Iran, according to the Red Crescent, with 747 injured.

The strikes are more than a regional event. They are a direct challenge to the post-1945 international order built on law and diplomacy, and to the limits the US Constitution places on presidential war-making.

A breach of the UN Charter

The UN Charter was written specifically to restrain the use of force. Article 2(4) prohibits military action against another state’s territorial integrity or political independence, except with Security Council authorisation or in genuine self-defence under Article 51, which permits force only in response to an actual armed attack.

In June 2025, UN human rights experts warned that “anticipatory” self-defence against a non-imminent threat is unlawful, cautioning that expansive pre-emptive doctrine would revive an era of “might is right” that the post-war order was meant to prevent. The International Commission of Jurists reached similar conclusions regarding earlier US and Israeli strikes.

The February 2026 operation follows a long chain of precedents that have progressively stretched these limits. NATO’s 1999 Kosovo campaign, conducted without Security Council authorisation, was widely regarded as illegal despite humanitarian justifications. The 2003 invasion of Iraq cited imminent threats that proved unfounded. The post-9/11 decade entrenched the pattern: US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia—often without host-state consent or UN approval—were justified as counterterrorism or self-defence. Each instance, described as exceptional, became a precedent for the next.

The February 2026 strikes follow the same logic, placing power above the law, eroding what legal scholars have called the “grammar of restraint” forged after the Second World War.

At the centre of this decline is the doctrine of anticipatory self-defence. Article 51 allows force only in response to an armed attack. Customary international law, crystallised in the 19th-century Caroline formula, confined self-defence to threats that are “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means.”

Over time, the meaning of “imminence” has expanded. The 2002 US National Security Strategy argued that grave or unconventional threats might justify striking first—a rationale later invoked in Iraq and echoed in Trump’s justification for the current campaign. The International Court of Justice has consistently taken a narrower view of what constitutes an “armed attack”, and many international law scholars reject the use of force based on conjectural risks.

If the expanded doctrine becomes settled practice, states could cite anticipated threats—missile deployments, shifting alliances, military modernisation—as grounds for attack, making the Charter’s prohibition conditional rather than absolute.

Legal criticism of the strikes has not been confined to Western capitals. Across the Global South, governments rejected the legal basis advanced by Washington and Tel Aviv. The Chairperson of the African Union, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, said the operation marked “a serious intensification of hostilities” and called on all parties to act “fully in accordance with international law and the United Nations Charter”. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said the attacks “violated international law”, noting that “anticipatory self-defence is not permitted under international law“. Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the strikes “a blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter”. Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry said the use of force breached the Charter’s prohibition and called for disputes to be settled through diplomacy.

For many states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the Charter’s restraints are not rhetorical commitments but structural safeguards. If powerful states may unilaterally redefine imminence to suit their strategic interests, the legal protections on which smaller states depend become contingent on political alignment rather than principle.

Tense history

Iran’s modern era is scarred by foreign interference. In 1953, the CIA—with British backing—staged a coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s democratically elected leader. The Shah’s repressive rule that followed bred resentment of the West and contributed to the conditions that produced the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The brutal 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, triggered by Saddam Hussein’s invasion, killed an estimated one million people and devastated both societies, a conflict in which many Western governments supplied arms to Baghdad.

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, justified by claims about weapons of mass destruction that were never found, produced tens of thousands of civilian deaths, ignited sectarian conflict, and left the region less stable than before.

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By contrast, the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or “Iran nuclear deal”, was a product of sustained multilateral negotiation. It froze Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. When the US withdrew in 2018, critics warned that discarding a functional, if imperfect, agreement would isolate Washington and invite renewed nuclear competition. The February 2026 strikes—launched only weeks after a fresh round of US-Iran talks in Geneva, conducted under Omani and European mediation—confirmed that warning.

Bombs can destroy infrastructure, but they rarely produce stable governance. History suggests they more often strengthen the forces they aim to eliminate.

Constitutional question

The February 2026 strikes also strained the US Constitution’s own limits. Article 1 vests the power to declare war exclusively in Congress. The White House notified the bipartisan “Gang of Eight”—senior congressional leaders and intelligence committee heads—shortly before the operation began, but did not seek formal authorisation.

The constitutional objection is not new. When the US joined Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] wrote to the White House making clear that “only Congress can authorize the use of military force against Iran.” Rep. Lateefah Simon of Oakland called that earlier bombing “lawless, dangerous, and immoral”. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump had “ignored the Constitution by unilaterally engaging our military without Congressional authorization”. Those arguments apply with equal force to the February 2026 campaign.

After the latest strikes, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Ro Khanna of California moved a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to prohibit sustained hostilities in Iran without congressional approval. House Democratic leaders said they would bring it to a vote.

Diplomatic breakdown

The timing is notable. The latest strikes came only weeks after renewed US-Iran negotiations in Geneva, the most recent effort at a negotiated settlement of disputes over Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes. Force did not supplement those talks; it ended them.

What is lost is not only a single round of negotiations but the conditions that make negotiation possible: the expectation that disputes will be resolved through dialogue rather than sudden violence, and that agreements, once reached, will hold.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking at an emergency Security Council session on the day of the strikes, called the escalation “a grave threat to international peace and security” and warned that military action risked “igniting a chain of events that no one can control”. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez rejected what he called “the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel”, demanding immediate de-escalation. Russia described the strikes as “a pre-planned and unprovoked act of aggression”. China called for dialogue and a halt to military action.

If force alone becomes the measure of international disputes, the structures of collective security ( the UN Charter, multilateral law, negotiated agreements ) lose their purpose. The question now is whether the strikes produce the stability their architects claim to seek, or whether history’s record of such interventions holds.

Inside Iran

Khamenei had no declared successor. Under the constitution, a provisional council—comprising the president, the judiciary chief, and a Guardian Council member—holds authority while the 88-member Assembly of Experts selects a permanent replacement “as soon as possible.” President Masoud Pezeshkian and Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei sit on the interim council; the third seat was unconfirmed as of Sunday.

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] will shape the outcome. The Council on Foreign Relations [CFR] noted that removing Khamenei “is not the same as regime change—the IRGC is the regime.” CIA assessments produced before the strikes concluded that hardline IRGC figures were the most likely beneficiaries of any transition. Historical precedent in Iran suggests that external attack tends to consolidate rather than weaken entrenched power.

The CFR identified three possible trajectories: managed regime continuity, a military takeover, or systemic collapse. Which prevails will determine whether the operation produces the outcome its architects intend.

The writer is a legislative and policy researcher and LAMP Fellow 2024-25 at PRS Legislative Research.