The case against Iran

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey:

Speaking last October at a Tehran conference on "The World Without Zionism," Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, referred to Israel as a "disgraceful blot" and called for it to be "wiped off the map." This was not an isolated or idle threat. In the same speech, he defended Iran's determination to press ahead with its nuclear program -- which would give it the practical ability to achieve this result.

Although Ahmadinejad's bellicose statements were condemned by the United States and a number of its European allies, the condemnation was not followed up by a concerted diplomatic and legal effort in the U.N. Security Council. It ought to be, especially given the uncertain prospects of the council's current consideration of Iran's nuclear activities, further complicated by the just-announced offer of direct negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

There is a good legal basis for such action. Ahmadinejad's words clearly violate Article 2.4 of the U.N. Charter. This provision, to which Iran has agreed, requires all U.N. member states to "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Ahmadinejad's specific formulation -- wiping Israel off the map and prophesying a coming nuclear conflagration in which much of humanity would expire -- also clearly entails a threat of committing genocide, which member nations are obliged, under the Genocide Convention, to prevent.

Both the nature and context of Ahmadinejad's manifesto set it apart from such harsh but legally permissible rhetoric as President Bush's talk of an "axis of evil" or President Ronald Reagan's reference to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire." Such statements do not threaten the existence of a sovereign member of the international community. Likewise, expressing a view that a particular undemocratic regime or an otherwise odious government would not survive the rising anger of its people, or will fall prey to certain forces of history, does not amount to a legally proscribed challenge.

But Ahmadinejad's rant features a direct and unequivocal threat, and it gives Israel a valid casus belli -- under both Article 51 (self-defense) of the U.N. Charter and customary international law -- to use preemptive force as a means of ensuring that Iran cannot make good on its stated intentions.

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There is much more. If the UN were a rational body, Israel would have a slam dunk case. It is not though and it has many members who have the same irrational hatred of Israel.