TEHRAN - In an exclusive interview with Tehran Times, Dimitri Lascaris, a prominent Canadian lawyer, journalist, and human rights activist, offers a powerful critique of the recent Israeli and U.S. military strikes against Iran. 

Renowned for his sharp analysis of international law and global power structures, Lascaris challenges prevailing Western narratives, arguing that the attacks were not isolated Israeli actions, but rather a coordinated campaign of aggression orchestrated by the United States and its allies.

Drawing on international legal frameworks, Lascaris contends that the bombings targeting Iranian nuclear scientists and civilian infrastructure constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. He criticizes the failure of international institutions—particularly the UN Security Council and the IAEA—to respond effectively or uphold their legal obligations, framing this inaction as part of a broader pattern of Western impunity.

The interview further delves into Iran’s potential withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the erosion of global disarmament efforts, and the strategic considerations behind Iran possibly pursuing a nuclear deterrent. Lascaris also scrutinizes the limited responses of Russia and China, urging them to take a firmer stance by imposing sanctions on Israel under international legal conventions.

Finally, also highlights the miscalculations made by the U.S. and Israeli administrations in their efforts to undermine the Islamic Republic, emphasizing the unity and resilience of the Iranian people in the face of military aggression and external pressure. 
His commentary serves not only as a legal and geopolitical analysis but also as a call for the international community to confront the double standards that define today’s global order.

The following is the text of the interview: 

Question: How do you assess the role of Western media in shaping public understanding of Israel's attack on Iran, especially through the framing of such actions as primitive strikes? 

Answer: Well, the first problem for a quite intentional misrepresentation in the Western media about this war is that it is a war by Israel against Iran. It is not a war by Israel against Iran, because Israel is a pipsqueak of a country, which, if it was acting independently, without the support of the entire West, would never have attacked Iran. Israel would have been destroyed immediately had it done this on its own.

What this actually is is a war by the United States and other Western powers, most notably Britain and possibly also Germany, using Israel as a proxy to wage war on Iran. It's very clear about this, and this is a mistake that I make all the time. I refer to it as the Israeli attack on Iran, but it isn't.

It's a Western war on the Islamic Republic. The second thing is that, as a matter of international law, the idea that these Western attacks on Iran were preemptive is without any kind of legal foundation. 

First of all, the whole question of whether preemptive strikes are permissible in international law is very debatable, but if they are permissible, they're only permissible when they are done in the face of an imminent attack by the country that is being targeted with the preemptive strikes.

There is no evidence that Iran was preparing to attack Israel imminently or ever. There's no evidence. So even if the theory of preemptive strikes is valid, which is debatable, it would not apply here.

The third thing is that there was no real attempt made by the Western media to examine the legality of the attacks under the UN Charter. So we heard repeatedly the repetition of Western government claims that Israel has a right to defend itself, but in fact, this was a war of aggression. It is the supreme crime in international law, as the Nuremberg Tribunal observed, and not only was the Western-backed attack on Iran a crime of aggression, but the way in which it was carried out also involved multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, and particularly I'm talking here about the attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Even if the United States acting through Israel had a legal right to attack Iran, and it didn't, the attacks on the nuclear facilities were a violation of international law. 

They are barred by the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and clearly were a crime against humanity. And then, of course, there were the attacks on civilians.

Many civilians were targeted and killed, hundreds of them, in instances where the Israelis killed nuclear scientists, claiming them to be legitimate military targets. That is false. These nuclear scientists were not legitimate military targets, even if they had some involvement in Iran's nuclear energy program.

There was no evidence that Iran sought to develop a nuclear weapon, in other words, to militarize its nuclear energy program. So the attacks on the nuclear scientists were a violation of international law. The killing of the family members of nuclear scientists and of military figures, actual military figures in Iran, was a crime under international law.

So this was one unrelenting crime spree, committed by the West through its Israeli proxy, and at no time did the Western media convey any sense of the illegality of these atrocities. And finally, I think the other great deception that the Western media has been perpetrating from day one is that Israel, through the United States, has won this war, or is winning this war. Israel did not achieve any of its objectives.

Israel tried to overthrow the Islamic Republic. It failed miserably. If anything, the government is stronger now.

Israel tried to destroy Iran's ability to enrich uranium. It failed to do that. Israel tried to partition the country.

It clearly has failed to do that. And in the process, Israel expended massive amounts of money, sacrificed many of its own citizens, and suffered devastating damage. And I'm quite confident that a lot of people are going to end up leaving Israel because of this.

Zionists that the genocidal entity needs in order to maintain dominance over the indigenous Palestinian population. So all of this, this catastrophic defeat that the West has suffered in this war, is being presented by the Western media as a victory. It's as though they're calling black white and white black.

To any objective observer, we can see that the West, through Israel, failed to achieve all of its objectives, and is much weaker as a result. 

The attacks on the nuclear scientists were a violation of international law. The killing of the family members of nuclear scientists and military figures was a crime under international law.

Q: What legal and moral responsibilities do international bodies like the UN bear when a member state is widely accused of violating the UN Charter, as in the case of Israel's recent action? 

A: Well, the United Nations, if it were compliant with its responsibilities, particularly the UN Security Council, would have adopted a resolution immediately condemning the attacks on Iran.

Not just, again, not just Israel, but attacking the backers of Israel. You know, the United States has supplied the weapons. The United States supplied the intelligence.

The United States supplied the air defense batteries and the air defense missiles to protect Israel from retaliatory attacks. The United States probably provided the fuel that was used by these warplanes. So it is the United States that should be condemned by the UN Security Council, not just Israel, but also Britain because Britain participated as well.

So that's the first thing. The second thing, they should have ordered an immediate cessation of the hostilities. Thirdly, they should have ordered all those states that participated in this illegal attack to make reparations to Iran, to compensate Iran.

And if they refused to do those things, the United Nations Security Council should have imposed punishing sanctions, not just on Israel, but on the states that participated in this crime against humanity with Israel. Instead, the United Nations Security Council has done none of those things and has yet again proven that it is another failure. 

Q: Given the past warning about the dangers of Israel's potential nuclear escalation, what diplomatic or strategic option does Iran have to deter such a scenario, particularly in light of the significant military imbalance between Iran and all the Western allies?

A: Well, I think the first thing that Iran should do, which it has apparently done, is that it should terminate all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The International Atomic Energy Agency, like the United Nations, like so many other international institutions, has been co-opted and corrupted by the West, particularly by the United States.

There are good reasons to believe that the IAEA under the Argentinian Grossi has been secretly cooperating with the genocidal Israeli entity, and that information provided by the agency was used to murder nuclear scientists in Iran and to target its nuclear facilities. So I certainly understand and endorse the decision of the Islamic Republic to suspend all cooperation with the IAEA. 

The second thing is, I think that Iran has every right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and it should exercise that right.

It has every right to employ nuclear energy, and it should exercise that right. I think as a practical matter, it's going to have to take greater care to protect its nuclear facilities in the future. I don't agree with the claim that Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed.

I don't think we have enough evidence, and certainly, I don't have enough evidence to say what condition they're in. But if I were in the position of the government, I would be looking at ways of protecting our nuclear facilities even more than they were already protected. And to continue to lobby international organizations to hold the United States and Israel accountable for these crimes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The Iranian people have proven to be much more cohesive, much more devoted to the nation of Iran than the Western foreign policy elites have believed.

Q: Given increasing criticism of NPT's effectiveness and talk of Iran's possible withdrawal, do you believe the pursuit of a nuclear deterrent has become a rational or even necessary strategy for Iran?

A: I don't know whether it's necessary, but it may be advisable for Iran to have a nuclear deterrent.

And I say this as somebody who believes that no country should have nuclear weapons. And the countries that I trust the least to have nuclear weapons are Israel and the United States. The United States is the only state in the history of humanity to use them.

It used them in circumstances where there was no military justification, and it used them on civilian populations. The United States at the end of World War II intentionally massacred tens of thousands of Japanese children. When it dropped those atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it knew that it was going to cause the awful deaths of tens of thousands of children.

This is one of the greatest atrocities in human history. So anybody who thinks that the United States can be trusted with nuclear weapons needs psychotherapy. The second thing is Israel has demonstrated that it is capable of any crime, any atrocity.

It understands no limits to its conduct, and therefore it is the last country on Earth that we should trust with a nuclear arsenal. Quite apart from that, all of the nuclear-powered, all of the nuclear-armed states, every one of them, is violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Because the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty requires that the deal was struck when states entered into this was the states that didn't have nuclear weapons said, we will undertake not to develop them.

And the states that had them undertook to disarm, to engage in nuclear disarmament, and slowly wind down their nuclear arsenals, so we arrived at a point where no country had nuclear weapons. No nuclear power in the world today is engaged in a serious disarmament initiative. And in fact, what they're doing is they're modernizing their nuclear arsenals, expanding them, making them more lethal, more difficult to defend against.

This is a blatant violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. So like the UN Charter, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is a failure. It's another failure, and it's been discredited by the existing nuclear powers.

And of course, I didn't even mention the fact that Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It doesn't subject its nuclear facilities to it; it's the only state in West Asia that isn't a member. All other states are.

And it doesn't subject any of its nuclear facilities to inspection. So if I were Mr. Grossi and a board member of the IAEA, my primary concern would not be Iran. My primary concern would be Israel and the existing nuclear powers who refuse to engage in serious disarmament.

And the last thing I want to say is the United States, more than any other country, has undermined completely any existing disarmament efforts. It was the United States under George Bush that pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. And it was this president, Donald Trump, who pulled out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2018, which was a pillar of nuclear security in Europe.

So the US government is actually undermining nuclear disarmament efforts in blatant violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. 

Q: As you mentioned, Netanyahu and Trump failed in their goal to overthrow the Islamic Republic. What does this failure suggest about the internal resilience of the Iranian state? And what miscalculation might it reflect within the Netanyahu and Trump administrations' perception of Iran? 

A: Well, I think that the failure to overthrow the Islamic Republic really is yet another demonstration of the extraordinary occurrence of the foreign policy of the US. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Islamic Republic and the people of Iran.

The people of Iran are very proud people who have extraordinary, significant military, technological, and cultural accomplishments to their name.

This is a country that has been the subject of every manner of subterfuge, economic coercion, espionage, and isolation, and yet it managed to withstand an attack by the most heavily armed state on the planet, the United States, through Israel. What this shows is that the people of Iran are much more united than they (the West) had believed, they are much more cohesive, they are much prouder, and that they are able in a moment of existential threat to put aside whatever political differences they have and unite in support of the nation.

I think that this demonstrates yet again that the foreign policy elite in the West, by that I would include Israel, not just the United States and Britain, that they are extraordinarily ignorant about the non-Western world. They don't really understand the non-Western world. It's not just Iran. 

They don't understand many other powerful and influential countries in the non-Western world. And this is really a reflection of their own arrogance and white supremacy. What they really need is a strong dose of humility in the foreign policy elite. 

And I think that this demonstrates it. The Iranian people have proven to be much more cohesive, much more devoted to the nation of Iran than the Western foreign policy elites have believed. And part of the problem, I live in Canada much of the time, and in Canada, there's a small number of Iranians who are very, very pro-Western, very hostile to the Islamic Republic, and in favor of the Shah's son returning to power.

There's this very small element within the Iranian community. There are also many other Iranians living in the West, a few of whom I'm familiar with, who are friends of mine, who are appalled at the idea that the son of the Shah should take power. Strongly opposed to that idea. 

And many of these Iranians that I know in Canada who feel that way aren't necessarily deeply religious people. Many of them are secular. And yet they have this feeling that that would be an affront to the Iranian nation. 

In the West, the foreign policy elite believes that this little tiny fringe of the Iranian community in the West, which is pro-Shah and pro-monarchy, actually represents the sentiments of the Iranian people, which is absolutely false. And this just again demonstrates the extraordinary level of ignorance in the Western foreign policy elite about Iran. Will they learn any lessons from this? I doubt it. 

Will they try to inform themselves better about the country, its culture, its people, and its history? I wouldn't wager that they will do so. I think they will continue to demonstrate an extraordinary degree of ignorance and that will have disastrous consequences ultimately for the West. 

Q: How do you assess the approach taken by Russia and China regarding the recent Israeli and US aggression on Iran? What are the potential consequences of their stance, both in terms of their regional credibility and their broader geopolitical ambitions? 

A: Well, both the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China have condemned these crimes in the strongest terms, as they should, as should all governments. Whether they've gone beyond that is very difficult for me to say. For anybody who's not inside the governments of Iran, China, and the Russian Federation, whether they've provided any kind of military support or intelligence support to it during this conflict, I don't know. 

I don't know the answer to that question. My own personal view is that they would be wise to provide assistance to Iran if Iran requested, because ultimately the ultimate targets here are not just the Iranian people and the nation of Iran, but ultimately the United States is trying to reestablish its global hegemony. And it will ultimately, if it succeeds in its war on Iran, I don't believe it will, but if it were to succeed, the next targets would be the Russian Federation and China. 

And they're already waging a war on the Russian Federation. So it is in the interest of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China that they provide robust support to Iran if Iran requests it. And whether they've done that, I don't know. 

And I think at the same time we also have to be cognizant of the fact that the Russians, because they're already waging a war against the West, they're probably limited, to some degree, in terms of the military assistance that they can provide to Iran.

They have an existentially dangerous war on their border that they need to prioritize. But the People's Republic of China is not in that position. 

And the last thing I'll say is that, and this is something I'm personally disappointed about, the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China should be imposing sanctions on Israel. And they've not done that. And there's really no justification for that. 

In fact, they have an obligation to impose sanctions on Israel under both the United Nations Charter, because the International Court of Justice has ruled that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide. And they also have an obligation to sanction Israel under the Genocide Convention. So hopefully now they will reassess their policies towards Israel and impose the strongest sanctions they can possibly impose upon a genocidal entity.

The people of Iran are very proud people who have extraordinary, significant military, technological, and cultural accomplishments to their name. 

Q: How should Iran interpret Israel's rhetoric around the Lebanon model and the skepticism about the ceasefire in terms of sovereignty and long-term strategy posture? 

A: Well, the Lebanon model, as the Israelis call it, is simply a complete and utter contempt for the ceasefire agreement that the Israelis entered into. 

Virtually from the day that they entered into the so-called ceasefire, Hezbollah has refrained from attacking Israel, and Israel has attacked Lebanon, including civilian targets, repeatedly on an almost daily basis. And they're also, of course, attacking Syria in flavor of violation of international law, and they're trying to use Syrian proxies to destabilize Lebanon. 

So when the Israelis say they want the Lebanon model in their ceasefire with Iran, what they really mean is they want Iran to respect the ceasefire while they will have complete freedom to continue to attack Iran in violation of international law. 

So I think the idea that Iran is going to accept that is a fantasy. I think at some level the Israelis, whatever they may be saying publicly, understand that Iran is not going to restrain itself if it is attacked again. And I think that that's the reason why the ceasefire has held thus far. 

That's the reason why Israel, thus far, has not attacked Iran because I think if they understand, whatever they may say publicly, that there will be retaliation and it will be severe. But that doesn't mean that the war is over. I think the Israelis will continue to foment terrorism inside Iran. 

They may target the Supreme Leader. The defense minister of the genocidal entity, Israel Katz, recently admitted that they actually tried to assassinate the Supreme Leader and failed. So that is something that I think the leadership of Iran needs to be very, very careful of. 

They will continue to attempt decapitation strikes. They will continue to try to murder nuclear scientists. And they will continue to foment terrorism inside the country. 
And maybe at some point, they will actually engage in overt military hostilities against Iran again