If Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellars) can “learn to shop worrying and love the bomb,” then I can certainly “learn to stop worrying and love the end to international law.”
To wit: After the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran — including 30 bombs on the compound of the Ayatollah Khamenei — I’ve been spending a lot of time watching BBC and France 24 news coverage, largely because they’re ad-free and actually have correspondents in Iran.
Of course, the coverage on these two channels is largely anti-U.S. and anti-Israel, though they kinda give Israel more of a pass in protecting itself against an existential threat. The BBC even did a live interview with an officer in the Iranian Foreign Ministry, who blamed everything on the U.S. and Israel and refused to say if the Ayatollah is still alive.
What I found most interesting was an interview with U.S.-based David Albright, president of the non-profit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C. He seemed to support Trump’s actions and certainly Israel’s, and even pinpointed hidden Iranian nuclear development sites that should be struck.
Albright’s most salient point was that what came to be known as “international law” — as symbolized in the nonfunctioning United Nations — is now dead. And he didn’t label that as something terrible, just a reality that must be dealt with. He asked rhetorically if Vladimir Putin gives a hoot about international law.
In an earlier post about the demise of the United Nations, I mimicked the subtitle of the famous movie, “Dr. Strangelove,” which reads, “Or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.”
Therefore my headline about worrying no more about international law, which never amounted to anything more than a bunch of “yada yada” from gutless world leaders and bureaucrats.
RIP, international law. We’ll all be better off when the nonstop “yada yada” running and ruining world society is dead and gone.
