New Delhi, March 8 -- In international relations, manifestly illegal government action can sometimes be morally defensible. While historical examples of legitimacy trumping legality are few and far between, they do exist. The question of whether the joint US-Israeli war on Iran is one such case demands more attention than it has received so far.

It should be beyond dispute that the initiation of this war by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flagrantly violated international law, even if many of their allies have shown a willingness to fudge this issue.

Iran did not pose a threat to either country-from nuclear weapons, conventional missiles or state-sponsored terrorism-of an imminence or on a scale t...