Rogue States and Thought Crimes: Israel Strikes Iran

Photograph Source: Meghdad Madadi – CC BY 4.0

Pre-emptive attacks in international law are rarely justified.  The threat must evince itself through an obvious intent to inflict injury, evidence preparations that show the threat to be what Michael Walzer calls a “supreme emergency”, and arise in a situation where risk of defeat would be dramatically increased if force is not used.

Reaching an assessment on that matter is almost impossible.  Evidence of such a threat by the aggressor state is bound to be speculative...