Faisal al-Istrabadi

On the one hand, Ali Khamenei, as the supreme leader of Iran, has the blood of tens upon tens of thousands of Iraqis on his hands, as well as the blood of Iranians, as well as the blood of other peoples of the Middle East.

and so I am shedding no tears for his demise.

On the other hand, I happen also to be a lawyer, and I teach international law.

There can be no justification in international law for the actions taken by Israel and the United States.

As I scan the reaction of the rule of law states, the West European states and Canada,

I find that they are urging restraint upon Iran, which is indeed the entity that has been the state that has been attacked, not upon those who have attacked it without any legal justification.

I happen to hold a minority view in believing that the war in Iraq was legal, but that's a minority view, and I know that.

The majority view is that it was not.

That involved a number of Security Council resolutions, and in my view, a reading of the Security Council resolutions gave justification for the United States and its allies to resume hostilities in Iraq, in particular after the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, which said that Iraq was in material breach of its disarmament obligations.

So that was my view of the Iraq war.

I'm in a minority.

There is no legal justification for this any more than Vladimir Putin has for Ukraine.

My fear is this.

I wish the Iranian people well.

Iran is a neighboring state of Iraq.

Iraq shares its longest border with Iraq.

Chaos in Iran will be reflected in Iraq.

There is something worse than tyranny, and that is chaos.

Iraq went through a period of tremendous chaos after 2003.

Chaos in Iran will be reflected inside Iraq.