By Mohamed Harees –

Lukman Harees

Iran’s post-Khamenei moment is unfolding under the shock of an unprecedented decapitation strike and the broader sense that international rules are being openly violated and rewritten in favour of Western power. The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint US–Israeli operation, alongside heavy bombing of multiple Iranian cities, has thrust the country into a dangerous transition. For many in Iran and across the Global South, the episode wasn’t a pre-emptive strike or self-defence, but a calculated act of aggression designed to weaken a regional rival, protect Western oil interests and reinforce Israeli military dominance.

At the centre of the controversy is a basic question: who used large-scale force first? Western governments and much of their media have cast Iran as the primary aggressor, concentrating almost exclusively on Tehran’s retaliatory missile and drone strikes against US bases in the Gulf and Israeli military targets. Lost in this framing is the fact that the opening salvo was fired by US and Israeli aircraft deep inside Iranian territory, in a coordinated campaign that hit leadership compounds, Revolutionary Guard facilities and critical infrastructure. This sequence matters. Under the UN Charter, armed force is prohibited except in narrowly defined situations of self-defence or with explicit UN Security Council authorisation. In this case, there was no such authorisation, and the claim of self-defence rests on unproven assertions of imminent Iranian attacks.

The scale and nature of the initial bombardment suggest a strategic offensive rather than a narrow defensive reaction. The operation resembled an updated “shock and awe,” aiming not only to degrade Iran’s conventional capabilities but also to decapitate its leadership and install a puppet Shah regime beneficial to Western interests.  Unlike previous covert operations, cyberattacks or deniable assassinations attributed to Israel and the US, this was overt, massive and geographically widespread. The death of the Supreme Leader underscored the unprecedented character of the operation and its openly regime-threatening intent.

The human cost of that first wave has seared itself into Iranian public consciousness, especially the strikes involving a girls’ secondary school and two hospitals in western Iran. Whether the school was directly targeted or caught in the blast radius of a nearby “dualuse” facility, the outcome was the same: classrooms torn apart, children killed and injured, parents searching through rubble. The two hospitals, which under international humanitarian law enjoy special protection, also suffered devastating damage. Power failures, collapsing ceilings and shattered windows endangered patients in intensive care and neonatal units. International law allows hospitals to lose their protected status only if they are used for hostile acts and then only after clear warnings, neither of which appears to have occurred. Not surprising when it was being executed by the Zionist child killers and health care disruptors in Gaza!

These scenes have fuelled a powerful sense of déjà vu in a region that has witnessed similar devastation in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan. The rhetoric of “precision” and “surgical strikes” rings hollow when residential neighbourhoods, clinics and schools lie in ruins. For many Iranians, these attacks confirm a perception that Western militaries treat civilian spaces in the Middle East as expendable in pursuit of their strategic aims. The bombed classroom and damaged wards become symbols of a wider regime of impunity in which some lives count far less than others.

The legal and moral asymmetry has been mirrored in Western political discourse. From Washington to European capitals, officials have issued loud condemnations of Iran’s retaliatory strikes, depicting Tehran as reckless, destabilising and bent on regional chaos. In contrast, the original US–Israeli strikes are couched in technical language about “degrading capabilities,” “neutralising threats” and “sending a clear signal,” with civilian casualties mentioned, if at all, as unavoidable collateral damage. The attacks on the girls’ school and hospitals are downplayed, reframed as tragic accidents or simply ignored in favour of narratives stressing Western precision and restraint.

This double standard extends to the interpretation of the right to self-defence. Once Iran has been subjected to large-scale foreign attack, it acquires, under international law, a right to defend itself, subject to the requirements of necessity, proportionality and distinction between civilian and military targets. Iran’s response—missile and drone strikes aimed at US bases involved in the initial raids and Israeli military facilities—can be debated in terms of its wisdom and proportionality, but it is not inherently unlawful. Yet much Western commentary treats any Iranian force, however targeted, as illegitimate by definition, while placing the initial US–Israeli bombardment beyond serious legal scrutiny.

This pattern is familiar from earlier conflicts. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified through a radically expanded notion of preemptive selfdefence, later shown to rest on false premises. NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 bypassed the UN Security Council and was retroactively wrapped in the language of humanitarian necessity. In each case, powerful states stretched or ignored the rules, insisting that their exceptional actions were nonetheless compatible with a rules-based order. Iran’s experience now appears as another chapter in this history of selective legality, reinforcing the belief in much of the Global South that international law functions as an instrument of Western power rather than a genuinely universal framework.

A crucial miscalculation in Western capitals may lie in imagining that Iran can be coerced into submission as Iraq and Afghanistan were. Iran differs sharply from those earlier targets. It is larger, more populous and more institutionally cohesive, with significant conventional capabilities and a sprawling network of regional allies and proxy forces. The memory of the brutal Iran–Iraq war, decades of sanctions and repeated acts of sabotage and assassination has fostered a national narrative of resistance that transcends factional divides. While Iranians are deeply divided over their own government’s policies, many rally around the flag when foreign powers attack their soil.

The experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan serve as cautionary tales. In both cases, Western militaries were able to topple regimes and win initial battles, but they found themselves ensnared in long, costly occupations, insurgencies and state collapse. Those countries were fragile even before invasion. Iran, by contrast, retains a functioning bureaucracy, security apparatus and social cohesion that make a fullscale invasion unlikely and dangerous. The more its territory and leadership are attacked, the stronger the case becomes within Tehran’s elite for a strategy of firm, longterm deterrence aimed at raising the costs of any future assault.

Inside Iran, the post-Khamenei landscape may look fraught with uncertainty as he was the central pillar. Power struggles are likely among hardliners, pragmatists and security chiefs, particularly within the Revolutionary Guard, which already wields vast political and economic influence. However , based on past experiences, they have meticulously worked out their layers of succession. The IRGC has presented itself as the guarantor of national survival and cohesion in the face of external aggression, strengthening its hand against more moderate or reform-minded factions who might otherwise press for domestic liberalisation or diplomatic compromise.

At the societal level, years of sanctions, economic mismanagement and repression have left deep resentment. Womenled and youthdriven protests in recent years laid bare a powerful desire for change and personal freedom. Thus, although frustration build up, the US Israeli attack has hardened public attitudes in complicated ways and intensified anger toward foreign enemies.

Regionally, Iran’s leadership must now navigate a perilous environment. Iran’s recent missile and drone strikes on US bases across the Middle East mark a deliberate attempt by Tehran to signal that any attack on its soil carries a regional price. These strikes, framed by Iran as lawful self-defence, directly targeted American military infrastructure rather than Arab Gulf facilities, underlining that Iran sees Washington and Israel—not neighbouring states—as the primary architects of the current escalation. At the same time, long-standing Arab anxieties about US priorities have resurfaced sharply. Gulf capitals, especially Riyadh, have increasingly voiced the view that Washington is more committed to shielding Israel and preserving its regional military edge than to guaranteeing the security of its Arab partners. This perception deepens a strategic rift: as Iran strikes US assets in the region, key Arab allies see themselves dragged into a confrontation that advances Israeli interests first, American power projection second, and their own security last. The result is a growing debate in Gulf circles about diversifying security partnerships and reducing dependence on a US that appears increasingly unwilling—or unable—to act as a neutral guarantor of Arab security rather than as Israel’s principal armour.

Behind the immediate legal and humanitarian issues lie deeper strategic agendas. For segments of Israel’s political and security establishment, Iran has long been framed as the central existential threat. Neutralising its regional influence, rolling back its support for groups such as Hezbollah and Palestinian factions, and ensuring Israel’s unchallenged military superiority are core objectives. Some of the more maximalist currents still speak in the language of a “Greater Israel,” and while formal annexation projects may ebb and flow, the desire to prevent any capable regional challenger from constraining Israeli power remains constant.

For the US, the logic is rooted in geostrategic dominance and energy security. Even in an era of gradual transition away from fossil fuels, control over Middle Eastern oil and gas flows remains central to American global influence. A fragmented region, populated by states unable to unilaterally dictate terms to Western markets, serves this goal.  There is also the threatened closure of the Strait of Hormuz, amplifying global economic anxiety. Iran’s assertiveness—its missile programme, regional alliances, and role in key maritime corridors—poses a challenge to that architecture. Heavy strikes on Iran’s leadership and military infrastructure, therefore, can be seen not only as an immediate response to perceived threats but also as part of a long-term effort to contain an independent regional pole of power.

All of this feeds into a dominant narrative in parts of the Global South: that the confrontation is, at bottom, Iran versus a West determined to preserve its dominance and secure oil and security interests, rather than a neutral enforcement of universal rules. In this view, Western governments are not simply applying international law; they are weaponising it, invoking legality when convenient and ignoring it when their own forces bomb schools and hospitals. The West has totally obliterated the UN system.

In such a context, asserting that Iran has a right to defend itself is not to endorse every action of the Iranian state, nor to overlook its own problematic policies and rights abuses. It is to insist on a consistent application of principles. If the right of self-defence is sacrosanct, it cannot be reserved for the US, its allies and Israel alone. If civilian sites like schools and hospitals deserve protection, then violations should be condemned and investigated, whoever commits them. Their suffering exposes the gap between the lofty rhetoric of a “rules-based international order” and the lived reality of people in places where rules appear to bend with the interests of powerful states.

As Iran stumbles into its post-Khamenei era, it does so bruised but not broken, facing a West that seems determined to keep it boxed in and a region poised uneasily between escalation and a fragile, resentful stability. The way this crisis is remembered will depend in part on whether the world chooses to question the one-sided narratives that have long justified Western military adventurism, or whether it once again accepts a story in which some states may strike at will while others are blamed simply for striking back.