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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran. Since then, retaliatory strikes have hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf region, and the conflict has spread to Lebanon. The EU has called for restraint but has stopped short of naming the attack a violation of international law, while experts are debating whether the Responsibility to Protect can be invoked as justification.
Professor Solveig Richter, Professor of International Relations and Transnational Politics at Leipzig University and a member of the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics, assesses the conflict from the perspective of peace and conflict research – with a focus on the international order, Europe’s role, and prospects for Iran.
Professor Richter, what does this attack mean for the international order?
With Israel’s and the United States’ war of aggression against Iran, the ensuing retaliatory strikes, and the regional military confrontation now igniting, we are witnessing yet another major theatre of war and conflict on a global scale. It forms part of a succession of hot conflicts that contribute to the normalisation, trivialisation, and increasing use – indeed, the legitimisation – of military force for political ends, in stark violation of international legal norms.
We have seen this with Russia’s war of aggression. We have also clearly seen Donald Trump’s political trajectory: he has threatened the use of military force not only against so-called rogue states such as Iran or dictatorships such as Venezuela. Let us not forget that he has also threatened Greenland with military measures.
If we situate this conflict within that pattern, the systemic consequences for the international order – an order that, with the founding of the United Nations, committed itself to constraining military force – are far-reaching and will preoccupy us for years, if not decades.
This is not only about Trump’s policies. It is also about double standards on the part of the Western community of states, and about what I consider a misguided German foreign policy that fails to clearly name and criticise these military strikes as violations of international law. In the short term, we will see a highly unstable Middle East with no clear structures of order. We do not know how other armed groups in the region will respond – Kurdish rebel groups in Iran, for instance, are currently being armed by the United States. We will have to wait and see how the situation develops in Yemen or Lebanon. All of this will matter in the months ahead and, in the medium term, will shape the consequences of the unconstrained use of military force.
There is currently a heated debate about whether the attack on Iran can be classified as a case of the Responsibility to Protect – after all, the Iranian regime killed large numbers of protesters in January. How do you assess this debate?
The Responsibility to Protect was developed in response to the international community’s inadequate capacity to act in the face of mass atrocities against civilians, such as in Srebrenica in 1995 and in Rwanda. The underlying insight was that the international community can fail by not acting, rather than by acting wrongly.
Nevertheless, I see no basis for legitimising this military strike through the Responsibility to Protect – for several reasons. First, the justification put forward by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu is not primarily framed as protecting a civilian population from a dictator. That argument appears occasionally, but the stated rationale clearly points to a power-political confrontation: pre-emptive strikes, the destruction of a potential Iranian nuclear programme, military installations, and the like.
Second, invoking the protection of civilians cannot legitimise this form of attack. There can be no self-authorisation. The UN Security Council and other international bodies were not consulted about this war of aggression. That this principle has been misused to legitimise military strikes – in Libya and Iraq – has rightly been the subject of widespread criticism.
What matters more in this debate, in my view, is to listen to the voices of the Iranian people. This does not mean that I consider the preservation of, and support for, dictatorial regimes such as Iran’s to be justified; however, US and Israeli military strikes are not an adequate instrument of democratisation.
The EU has described the developments as “extremely concerning” and called on all parties to exercise restraint and respect international law. At the same time, its sharpest criticism is directed not at the attacks but at Iran’s retaliatory strikes. What does this response tell us about the EU’s capacity for foreign policy action?
European responses have varied widely, and this is consistent with a pattern we saw earlier this year in reactions to the military actions in Venezuela. On the one hand, there is a clear naming of the breach of international law, for instance by the Spanish Prime Minister. On the other, a very vague response from German Chancellor Merz, who – much as he did with regard to Venezuela – points to a dilemma under international law.
This reveals a division that, in my view, is deepening. Europe’s capacity to respond to the instability and military conflicts in the Middle East is inherently limited. At the same time, a divided response hollows out not only a shared community of values but also what constitutes a security community: namely which ordering principles and rules govern security cooperation between states – including with regard to future decisions.
Incidentally, this erosion of the international legal order very much suits Russia. It is precisely the narrative that Russia used in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Every legitimate condemnation of Russia’s actions rests on the premise that international legal standards are upheld.
In this sense, Europe’s ambivalent stance undermines its own rules-based order. And it will be difficult to reverse the continuous norm violations of recent years so as to return to a status quo ante. I see the risk of a genuine watershed for the rules-based order – on the one hand because states like Russia and the United States are resorting to military force, and on the other because those states that claim to defend this order fail to respond adequately.
You have spent years researching peace processes and post-conflict orders, for example in the Western Balkans and Colombia. What lessons from past interventions should we bear in mind with regard to what may follow in Iran?
The situation in Iran and the wider region is volatile and unpredictable. Many Iranians associate Khamenei’s death with hopes for democratic change. What we know from other conflicts and peace processes is this: such change can only come from Iranians themselves. Regime change imposed through bombing will not generate domestic legitimacy and will not produce long-term stability.
What gives me some measure of optimism is the persistence of opposition, protest, and reform movements in Iran. Despite all repression, despite massacres and violence, a protest movement has repeatedly managed to endure there in recent years. These forces for democratic change continue to exist.
In the face of an ongoing war whose dynamics are difficult to foresee, what is the task of peace and conflict research at such a moment – beyond day-to-day political commentary?
I have to be honest: the past few years have been very complex for those of us working in peace and conflict research. This applies not only to the US-Israeli military attack on Iran and the conflict now unfolding, but also to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and to the war in Gaza, with its extensive war crimes and human rights violations.
The question that always arises is how far scholarly analysis goes – the provision of knowledge – and where the responsibility to take a clear position begins. Where do we, as scholars, bear a responsibility to speak out?
This tension is intensifying with the increasing militarisation of the international order. So what can we contribute? It remains our task to provide scholarly orientation and to highlight long-term consequences: that military force does not simply mean targeted strikes on specific installations but carries systemic consequences for the international order, and that sustainable peace requires certain preconditions.
At the same time, the question is not only what knowledge we provide, but also how we as researchers are heard – and how academic work may be constrained. In recent years, there have been difficult debates within peace and conflict research about how to position ourselves in the face of divergent foreign policy priorities – for instance regarding Israel – so as to clearly highlight escalating dynamics of violence without being drawn into a polarised public debate and being instrumentalised.
Interview conducted by Roman Krawielicki (Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics)
Event notice:
On 12 March 2026, Professor Solveig Richter will chair a panel discussion on “Peace and Security Strategies in Times of Hybrid Threats” as part of the annual colloquium of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Research (AFK) at the Paulinum, Leipzig University (4–6pm). Following a welcome address by Rector Professor Eva Inés Obergfell, panellists include Dr Astrid Irrgang (Centre for International Peace Operations), Professor Janina Dill (University of Oxford), Colonel (GS) Katharina Benford (Federal Academy for Security Policy) and Ulrich Hörning (Mayor of the City of Leipzig). The event will be held in German with English interpretation.
Professor Solveig Richter
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97-35611
Email: solveig.richter@uni-leipzig.de
https://recentglobe.uni-leipzig.de Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics
Professor Solveig Richter
Source: Swen Reichhold
Copyright: Leipzig University
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Politics, Social studies
transregional, national
Transfer of Science or Research
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Professor Solveig Richter
Source: Swen Reichhold
Copyright: Leipzig University
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