With Iran, the U.N. Prioritizes Procedure over Principle

By Brett D. Schaefer

Monday, March 09, 2026

 

Although the United Nations Charter entrusts the U.N. Security Council with the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security,” the U.N. was barely, if at all, consulted about the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. And why should it have been? From Russia’s war on Ukraine to Iran’s war on its own people, the United Nations has proven itself to be impotent and irrelevant on most serious matters of global importance.

 

Almost immediately after the Iran strikes began, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres condemned the military action and demanded “an immediate cessation of hostilities and de-escalation” on the grounds that the actions violated the U.N. Charter. U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock declared that “concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program, regional activities, and human rights violations must be addressed in accordance with the U.N. Charter and international law.” U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk called for de-escalation and a return to negotiations. Russia and China condemned the violation of Iran’s “sovereignty, security and territorial integrity” in the Security Council, calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the resumption of negotiations.

 

This reaction is predictable, reflexive, and wholly disingenuous. The United Nations has become, on most matters of war and peace, a performative organization, where the niceties and processes take priority over accountability and just consequences.

 

Guterres never condemned Iran for violating international law or the U.N. Charter after it rejected the reimposition of U.N. sanctions when the European parties to the Iran nuclear deal implemented the snapback mechanism. Furthermore, Guterres reacted to the regime’s slaughter of thousands of Iranian protesters via an attributed statement urging “maximum restraint” and the avoidance of “unnecessary or disproportionate use of force.” A few weeks later, he sent a letter to the same Iranian government that had just killed thousands of its own citizens congratulating it on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and, when criticized, cited protocol.

 

Baerbock did not comment when the General Assembly elected Iran as the vice-chair of the U.N. Charter Committee charged with examining proposals “concerning the question of the maintenance of international peace and security.” Nor did she intervene when Iran was elected vice-chair of the U.N. Committee for Social Development, charged with “advancing social integration,” during its recent brutal crackdown.

 

The United Nations Human Rights Council condemned Iran in a special session over the same crackdown, then welcomed an Iranian official to address the opening of the Human Rights Council a few weeks later.

 

In the Security Council, Russia and China cynically condemned the U.S. and its allies for violating Iranian territorial integrity, with no intent to occupy the country, while they seek to conquer, respectively, an unwilling Ukraine and Taiwan.

 

And this is just Iran. The U.N. regularly issues strong condemnations of Israel for supposedly violating international law and human rights norms while downplaying the responsibility of Hamas and other terrorist groups for instigating the crises the Jewish state is attempting to address. U.N. officials are conspicuously silent about Chinese human rights violations and Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea. The U.N. is quick to condemn the U.S. for blocking oil shipments to Cuba, but it rarely comments on the Cuban government’s repression of its people.

 

Pick any major threat to international peace and security, and if the U.N.’s leadership isn’t affirmatively on the wrong side, the organization will be largely impotent. Russia and Ukraine? The U.N. is not involved in negotiations. Terrorism? The U.N. does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Nuclear proliferation? The U.N. is trying desperately to preserve the Iranian regime. Pandemics? The World Health Organization made a hash of Covid. Economic development? The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are unrealistic, off-track, and largely irrelevant to development. Climate? The U.N. distorts data and presents unrealistic solutions.

 

Ironically, it is the U.S., condemned by U.N. officials, that is doing the most to enforce the organization’s principles.

 

Donald Trump is unorthodox, but he is indisputably eager to resolve conflicts, whether between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, or Morocco and the Western Sahara. The U.N. has six peacekeeping operations that have been in place for decades but have made little progress. At some point, patience with the peace process turns into enabling intransigence.

 

Will the Board of Peace usher in peace to Gaza or elsewhere? Maybe not. But the U.N. has failed to resolve these conflicts. Trying something different, even if it leaves the U.N. sidelined, is hardly outlandish.

 

The U.N. organization and the principles outlined in the U.N. Charter are not the same. The organization’s principles can be supported and defended without the procedural blessing of U.N. bodies — particularly because U.N. processes seldom uphold the principles they were designed to champion.

 

The current military action in Iran is far from a violation of the U.N.’s principles. In defending U.S. military action in Iran, Ambassador Mike Waltz pointed to extreme violence against and repression of Iranian civilians; multiple direct and indirect attacks by Iran in the territory of foreign states, which together have resulted in hundreds of deaths; the holding of civilians hostage; and multiple violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The U.S.-Israeli attack occurred only after months of negotiations failed because of Iran’s obstinacy.

 

What truly offends the U.N. is that the U.S. is exposing this pretense. America decided to act in defense of the self-determination of the Iranian people and to confront a decades-long threat to international peace and security. It is this difference — the idolatry of bureaucratic process, reflexive moral equivalence, and a persistent opposition to American leadership — that explains why the U.N. is held increasingly in contempt. And deservedly so.