Gulf states have been pushing for peace between Iran and the West: Qatar has brokered nuclear talks, Oman has provided back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia has held direct talks with Iran through 2024 and 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The notion that the Gulf states have an obligation, a moral obligation, to shield Iran from the consequences of its actions because of good neighborliness is now ironic in the context. Iran has not returned a good neighbor. Iran returned ballistic missiles.
Iran’s position is based on three propositions. First, Iran acted in legitimate self-defense pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter; Host nations relinquished territorial sovereignty by allowing US military bases on their territory; And the definition of aggression in Resolution 3314 justifies attacks on those bases as legitimate military objectives. Each of these propositions is legally flawed, factually skewed, and tactically incorrect. Overall, he adds, the legal argument that, if accepted, would ensure that the Gulf is permanently destabilized, basic principles of international law will be destroyed and, in a curious twist, the security threats to which Iran is responding will be strengthened.
The right of self-defense does not meet the legal threshold required
The UN Charter, in Article 51, allows the use of force only in self-defense against “armed attack”, and the term is not defined by reference to a state. In cases such as Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States) (1986) and Oil Platforms (Iran v. United States) (2003), the International Court of Justice has narrowly defined the requirement of “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The Court distinguished between the most serious forms of use of force that qualify as armed attacks invoking the right of self-defense and the less serious uses of force. Accordingly, not every use of force, such as minor incidents or limited military activities, amounts to an armed attack. In this light, the presence of foreign military bases in Gulf states operated for decades under defense agreements with host governments does not in itself constitute an armed attack against Iran.
Necessity and Proportionality As part of customary international law, self-defense must be necessary and proportionate. Iran has not demonstrated either. Targeting the territory of other sovereign Arab states in response to policy decisions by the United States is not necessary, as diplomatic and United Nations channels are still available or not proportionate, as it would impose military consequences on states that are not party to any conflict with Iran.
Critically, Article 51 also contains a mandatory procedural element, requiring any State to immediately notify the Security Council of any exercise of self-defense. Iran has consistently avoided this requirement in each of its escalation measures. Although this may seem like a minor point, it is actually a way for the international community to be able to review and verify claims of self-defense. A State that evades this requirement is not invoking Article 51. It is using the language of Article 51.
Iran’s reading of Resolution 3314 is a fundamental distortion
The provision of Article 3(f) of the Annex to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) (1974) states that an act of aggression “includes an act by a State which has placed its territory at the disposal of another State and allows it to be used by that State against aggression by a third State”. Iran could rely on this provision to hold Gulf states that hold United States military bases responsible for any act of aggression committed from their territories against Iran. Nevertheless, the presence of military bases is not sufficient to hold them as legitimate military objectives; It depends on their actual contribution to military activities against Iran based on the rules of international humanitarian law.
Thus, such an Iranian reading falls short on three different legal grounds.
First, Resolution 3314 is interpretive in nature. The resolution was adopted to help the Security Council determine when aggression has occurred, without giving states the unilateral power to punish states deemed to have committed aggression through the use of force. The resolution itself asserts, in Article 2, the power of the Security Council to make a resolution constituting aggression. The self-application of Article 3(f) of the resolution is therefore completely bypassed.
Second, Article 3(f) speaks of the active launch of an attack, not the passive hosting of a military base. The legal distinction is fundamental. A state, signing a defense treaty with another and organizing the latter’s army on its soil, is engaging in a measure of sovereignty. A state that actively initiates, coordinates or enables military attacks against a third party is engaged in an entirely different matter. Iran has not made this second case credible. The presence of US forces or bases in the Gulf has been a fact for decades and does not constitute an armed aggression against Iran under any legal standard.
Third, even if Article 3(f) applies, bringing the matter to the Security Council is the appropriate route, not launching unilateral military attacks. Resolutions of the General Assembly do not override the Charter. Iran does not rely on the non-restrictive resolution to override the Chapter VII requirements or Article 51’s express criteria for the use of force.
Sovereignty is not dictated by the strategic preferences of neighbors
Iran, invoking the principle of good neighborliness, asks the Arab Gulf states to deny the United States basic rights. Good neighborliness is a two-way principle, and it does not allow interference in the internal affairs of other states, certainly does not interfere in the decisions of other states because they consider it inconvenient for the intervening state. All UN states have an inherent right to conclude defense treaties with whomever they choose, and this is regardless of the opinion of their neighbours.
The asymmetry of Iran’s position is significant and self-qualifying. Iran itself has active military ties with Russia and China. Iran arms, finances, trains and supports the activities of non-state military actors in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force operates openly in various states and has been widely documented in the reports of United Nations expert committees and other international monitoring reports. According to the criteria Iran applies to the Gulf states, any state that hosts the activities of the IRGC, the transfer of Iranian weapons or the coordination of Iranian proxies on its soil, engages in aggression against third parties. Iran does not accept this principle when applied to itself. A legal principle which is unacceptable to the party applying it is not a legal principle; It is a political tool.
An ideology that defeats Iran’s own strategic interests
From the perspective of international relations theory, Iran’s position follows the logic of aggressive realism, which seeks to remove the external balance architecture of its regional neighbors by claiming that it is hostile in nature. However, this approach is practically self-defeating.
Under balance of threat theory, states respond to aggressive capability, geographic proximity, and aggressive intentions. Iran’s ideology, asserting the right of the host to perceive any state as a threat, drives every threat variable to a maximum for every state in the region. A clear implication in the data is that states and external powers in the region are increasingly consolidating, rather than receding. The permanent basing of the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, the UAE’s negotiations on F-35s, Saudi Arabia’s deployment of THAADs and Qatar’s expansion of the Al Udeid base are responses to Iran’s escalation, not its causes.
From a constructivist perspective, the legitimacy of a legal argument is based in part on the normative credibility of the state presenting the argument. Iran’s record of compliance with IAEA rules, including enriching uranium to 60 percent or higher purity levels in 2023-2024, interference with inspections, removal of surveillance cameras, and overall violations of the non-proliferation regime, has significantly undermined the state’s credibility. A state that violates the rule of law cannot claim the role of a law-abiding state to be protected under the rule of law norms.
Iran’s legal logic has always been ideologically flawed. What has happened since February 28, 2026 has made Iran’s actions morally and politically wrong. Iran isn’t just targeting US military assets. The reality of the situation is now documented and undeniable. Ballistic missiles and drones were launched against the Gulf states in the early days of the conflict. This is the first time that one actor has attacked all six GCC states simultaneously. Iran has stepped up its attacks in deliberate steps. Day 1: Iranian missiles are fired against military bases. Day 2: Iranian missiles are fired against civilian infrastructure and airports. Day 3: Iranian missiles are fired against the energy sector. Days 3 and 4: Iran attacks the US Embassy in Riyadh. International airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait were hit by Iranian missiles, resulting in grounding of flights across the region. Videos from Bahrain recorded an Iranian Shahed drone attacking an apartment building. This is not self-defense. It is the collective punishment of sovereign nations that have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid conflict.
The logic provided by Iran falls flat when one considers the actions taken by Iran itself. Its doctrine assumed that only targets involved in the preparation or launch of an attack against Iran were legitimate targets. Civilian airports are not military bases. Hotels in Palm Jumeirah are not military command centers. The apartment complex in Manama is not a weapons storage facility. By Iran’s own stated legal logic, none of these targets were legitimate, yet they were attacked. It was not a legal doctrine; It was a pretext for oppression and the conduct of the war exposed this fact.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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