Killing Iran’s Rulers Is Just, But Not Necessarily Justified: How To Argue About The War Against Iran – OpEd |
In their recent attacks on Iran, Israel and the United States killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with several other senior figures of the theocratic regime. Opinions on the moral legitimacy of the attacks diverge: While some welcome them as the long-awaited liberation of the Iranian people, others condemn them as an illegitimate act of aggression. To assess these competing claims, it is crucial to distinguish between what is just and what is justified. While the strikes against Iran’s rulers are clearly just, the question of whether they are also justified and thus legitimate remains open to further debate.
Why the Use of Force Against Iran’s Rulers Is Just
Robert Nozick opens his classic Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) with the following famous line: “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).” Unfortunately, Iran’s rulers and their accomplices do many of the very things that violate their own people’s rights. According to local health officials, the regime may have killed more than 30,000 Iranians in recent protests against its ongoing oppression. This oppression consists in the systematic violation of people’s most fundamental rights, such as personal autonomy and freedom of expression. In other words, Iran’s regime is engaged in a sustained attack on its own people.
The rights violations committed by the regime’s rulers and their accomplices have consequences for their own rights. According to standard accounts of the ethics of self-defense and war, those who violate rights may become liable to harm—that is, they forfeit their rights against some degree of harm and so would not be wronged by such harm. In that case, no injustice would be done to them; harming them would be just.
Since Iran’s rulers and their accomplices violate fundamental rights, it seems plausible that they have forfeited their right not to be killed. As I have explained in a previous essay, we can test that assumption by asking whether they could reasonably complain about being killed or demand an apology or compensation—something they could do if they still had their right not to be killed. However, it seems counterintuitive that they could reasonably do so, given what they have done and continue to do to the Iranian people. Thus, killing them would arguably be just—it would not violate their rights.
Why the Use of Force Against Iran’s Rulers Is Not Necessarily Justified
However, as Uwe Steinhoff and other contemporary philosophers have emphasized, liability does not amount to justification. The fact that killing the regime’s rulers and their accomplices is just does not mean that it is justified. For example, if an armed mugger threatens to shoot you unless you hand over your wallet, he arguably forfeits his own right not to be killed. After all, he would be in no position to complain or demand compensation if you used deadly force to fend off his unjust attack—even if he were only after your money. As Steinhoff points out, “He is anything but innocent, but rather guilty of a blatant disrespect for other people’s lives.” But suppose you know that if you kill him, his family will go on to kill dozens of innocent people in revenge for his death. In this case, killing the mugger appears unjustified, even though doing so would arguably still not violate his rights. The reason is not so much concern for the aggressor, but rather the protection of the innocent.
The same reasoning applies to the Iranian case: even if killing the regime’s rulers and their accomplices would not wrong them, it does not follow that killing them is justified. For example, removing the regime may destabilize the region and generate greater suffering in the long run. Likewise, other countries might be encouraged to ignore international law and pursue their interests by force, thereby making the world less safe. Ultimately, as the expected swift victory over the regime fails to materialize, the risk of escalation grows, potentially drawing in more actors. Whether these reasons are ultimately persuasive is a matter for further debate and cannot be settled here.
How To Argue About the War Against Iran
Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that the justness of killing the regime’s rulers along with their accomplices does not entail that their killing is justified. The distinction enables us to assess more carefully the quality and sincerity of arguments in the debate about the war against Iran.
If someone argues that the attacks are justified merely by appealing—explicitly or implicitly—to the fact that the regime’s rulers and their accomplices have forfeited their rights against harm, this would be insufficient and require further argument. If, on the other hand, people condemn the attacks on Iran, we may likewise ask whether their condemnation rests on principled concern for the innocent or rather on personal political sympathies or hostilities. This helps to separate serious arguments from those based on false assumptions or rationalized emotions, thereby fostering more rigorous debate.