As you’ll have noticed, New Zealand hasn’t condemned the strikes. In fact, in a radio interview this morning, the Prime Minister said that our position aligns with Australia’s - and Australia has openly supported the strikes.
The logical conclusion, then, is that we support the strikes too, even if we’re not saying so explicitly.
That lack of condemnation has upset Helen Clark because, as she points out, the air strikes are illegal under international law. And she is right about that. But can anyone seriously argue that the strikes shouldn’t have happened?
Consider the counterfactual - the strikes didn’t happen at the weekend. Ayatollah Khamenei is still alive. He continues to kill tens of thousands of Iranians for protesting, continues to fund Hamas to attack Israel, continues to fund and support the Houthis as they cause turmoil in the Middle East, continues backing Hezbollah to create further instability, and continues causing trouble as far away as Australia, where Iran allegedly directed the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne just a few months ago.
This is exactly the same dilemma the world faced in Venezuela with the capture of Maduro. It shouldn’t have happened, it broke the rules - but no one is sad that someone broke the rules to do what many believed needed to be done.
Now, obviously, this doesn’t guarantee success. Bombing a country to force regime change almost never works.
What comes next could be worse. The disruption to the Middle East could be greater than any benefit gained. But all of those are unknowns right now.
What is known is this: the Iranian regime was murdering its own people, destabilising the region and attempting to cause disruption even further afield.
So yes, what happened at the weekend broke the rules. But tell me - are you upset that it did?
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show. This article was sourced from Newstalk ZB.
4 comments:
It is truly scary to live amongst so many uninformed commentators. I blame the MSM.
Firstly, for anyone who has been following the Iranian situation, it is a citizens uprising.
Secondly, a government is there solely for the benefit of the people, not themselves. Therefore, if somebody declares themselves "supreme leader for life" with no elections and an autocratic rule, there is every justification to dispose of them. Especially if they kill thousands of their own citizens.
When you proclaim yourself "the sole source of truth" you eventually become pretty unpopular.
Sometimes outside intervention is required when all other means are exhausted.
People cannot ever seem to answer the question "what hope would there be for any citizens if all rescue attempts were prohibited?"
As usual, conservatives admire decency and action whilst democrats wring their hands and talk nonsense. Out comes the anti-Semitism, the TDS and the faux outrage.
The question is what is the story with so called International law?
Are Clark et al more interested in International control and are a little miffed at losing their grip .
International law? What international law? I didn't vote for it. It has had no mandate from the New Zealand people.
Heather appears to be appealing to the 'R2P' doctrine in international law - that's 'Responsibility to Protect'. To quote Google AI, "The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a 2005 United Nations commitment ensuring the international community never fails to halt mass atrocities: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. It posits that sovereignty is a responsibility, not a right, requiring states to protect their own populations and others to intervene if a state fails to do so." Lofty ideals, but the doctrine came under severe scrutiny after it was abused by NATO in 2011 who used it to engineer the murder/assassination of Khaddafi in Libya. I commented at the time that 'R2P' had become 'R2C' - 'right to change a regime we don't like'.
The last two commentators above would do well to have a look at the Wikipedia entry for international law for starters as they do not appear to know what it is and how it operates.
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