Iran and the Gangster World Order
by Karl Richter
Karl Richter analyzes the strike on Iran, the unraveling of international law, and the geopolitical shockwaves—from oil markets to BRICS realignment—now reshaping the global balance of power.
February 28, 2026, will, in retrospect, appear as the day that changed a lot. It will go down in history as a major step in the barbarization of the international order. As the day on which the United States and Israel finally buried international law.
For decades, Iran has been the pariah of the world. The country was already subjected to sanctions by the United States in the 1950s, when the Shah’s predecessor Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry. Since 1979, the sanctions regime has been permanent. Since 2018, during Trump’s first term in office, Iranian oil exports have been under a total embargo. The consequences primarily affect the population.
The current war thus has a long prehistory, which ultimately can be reduced to two central moments: oil and the geostrategic significance of the country. If Iran falls today, Russia and China fall tomorrow. The Iranian plateau is the decisive hinge of the Eurasian landmass. If the United States gains a foothold here, all routes to Russia, China, and control over the Eurasian supercontinent lie open before it. And last but not least: the Great Satan tolerates no countries that stand up to it.
Resistance against the Western mass-murdering and pedophile order is more necessary than ever. The Russian geopolitician Alexander Dugin recently formulated, with reference to the Epstein files (about which suddenly no one speaks anymore!), entirely correctly: “The Western world has collapsed. Not a single Western political leader, whether in the United States or the European Union, retains any moral authority. It is a coming-out: practically the entire global West appears as a pedophile Satanic organization. It is the end of any claim to leadership.”
All the more grotesque, then, appears the high-handed attack of recent days, restrained by no considerations whatsoever, of which U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth seriously claimed that the United States had not begun the war but was ending it. In the attack itself, Americans and Israelis made use of intelligence data indicating that the Iranian leadership would be assembling in a building complex in Tehran housing the offices of the president, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the National Security Council. Thirty bombs struck the building. Khamenei, 86 years old and spiritual head of the Islamic Republic for almost four decades, was killed. Alongside him died the chairman of the National Defense Council, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, the defense minister, and the chief of the general staff, as well as at least two dozen other high-ranking military officials and decision-makers; not to mention the annihilation of a girls’ school in the city of Minab, with 180 children and teachers killed. The targeted killing of a state’s leadership amounts to a civilizational rupture. Russia did not allow itself to be carried away to such acts in four years of the Ukraine war.
Donald Trump, who had promised to end America’s endless wars, dropped the final mask on Saturday. He vowed to raze Iran’s missile arsenal to the ground and threatened the harshest retaliation should Iran respond to the killing of Khamenei. We know the pattern: the attacked are not even supposed to defend themselves and are instead expected to allow themselves to be slaughtered in silence. NATO made a similar demand of Yugoslavia in 1999 when it attacked the country.
The official motive for the attack—the alleged nuclear threat—does not withstand scrutiny. The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, had only shortly before declared that there was no Iranian nuclear weapons program and no immediate threat. And on the very day before the attack, the Omani foreign minister, who had been mediating between Washington and Tehran for weeks, reported that a peace agreement was within reach—Iran had agreed to reduce its stockpiles of enriched uranium to the lowest possible level. Then the bombs fell. The Ukrainians have followed the same pattern for years: escalation strikes in the middle of ongoing negotiations—a textbook example of Western values.
Dominik Steiger, professor of international law at the Dresden University of Technology, was refreshingly clear on ZDF [German government TV channel] when asked whether the attack on Iran violated international law: “The answer is quite simple: No, they were not allowed to do that.” The UN Charter recognizes only two exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force: self-defense against an acute armed attack or a mandate from the Security Council. Neither was present. The assertion of a possible future threat is insufficient. If it is accepted today as grounds for war, tomorrow preventive strikes based on mere suspicion will become routine. It is obvious that Washington and Tel Aviv desire such a gangster world order. It would be equivalent to permanent wars worldwide.
The ongoing dismantling of law and the accompanying barbarization are unmistakable. At the latest since the 2003 Gulf War—but in reality already at the Nuremberg Trials of 1945/46—the world was accustomed once again to accepting torture as a legal instrument and thus regressing behind the Enlightenment. The NATO attacks on Yugoslavia (1999) and Iraq (2003), the Western interventions in Libya (2011) and Syria (2012) were unlawful and criminal. Since the beginning of the Gaza war in 2023, the entirely lawless conduct of warfare by the Netanyahu government in the Gaza Strip has largely been tolerated internationally. The prohibition of the use of force, one of the fundamental principles of international relations since 1945, is now openly regarded by the morally bankrupt West, including Israel, as an obstacle and is simply brushed aside.
What is particularly shocking: a large portion of right-wing conservatives and supposed “awakened” figures, extending deep into AfD functionaries, are applauding. After Corona and the Ukraine war, this is the next major intelligence test that many are failing. Unfortunately, all the Schunkes, Tichys, and Reichelts are blinded by hatred of Islam and completely misjudge what hour has struck. If the law of the fist now prevails over the rule of law, anyone can become the next victim tomorrow for any arbitrary reason, and no one will raise an outcry. With good reason, Alexander Dugin therefore advises the Russian leadership not to expose itself to the same risk as the eliminated Iranian leadership and instead to adopt American methods: “That means we could eliminate the military and political leadership of Ukraine and resolve the tasks of the special military operation without regard to cost.” Entirely correct. Only madmen or criminals can desire such international relations.
Europe, and Germany in particular, must prepare for turbulence. The security of Germany and its neighbors, all of them militarily impotent, rests not on aircraft carriers but solely on the binding force of law. If this disappears and a government of fools unparalleled in its dilettantism, like the one under Merz [German chancellor], simultaneously provokes conflict with Russia, the United States, and the Islamic world, stormy times lie ahead. Any of our neighbors, for example the Poles—and certainly Russia—could march in with complete impunity and wipe the slate clean. In the best case, such a scenario would at least mean the end of the regime.
We will not even begin to discuss the obvious consequences of American-Israeli criminal policy. Since Saturday, the oil price has risen by 16 percent, the price for LNG gas from Qatar by 45 percent. On Tuesday, Iran officially closed the Strait of Hormuz. We will experience a surge in inflation, probably disrupted supply chains, perhaps even attacks—after all, Germany is making common cause with the Epstein coalition. China has already halted the export of rare earths to the United States. The petrodollar system—already under pressure since the dollar’s share of global foreign exchange reserves fell from 71 to 57.8 percent—is rapidly losing further ground, which is good news. The integration of the BRICS bloc is being involuntarily accelerated: China’s interbank payment system and the mBridge platform, which opens digital currency corridors between China, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other states, are fully operational. Their launch could be brought forward and send the dollar further into decline.
Tehran will not be able to win the war militarily against the criminal powers Israel and the United States. That is not the decisive question. Iran only has to endure, survive, and raise the price for “USrael.” Morally, no one can take victory away from the Iranians: the aged Khamenei, who refused evacuation and apparently had already designated his successor, has become a martyr. Among Shiites, a martyr weighs heavier than an officeholder. The dead Supreme Leader is a powerful impulse to weld the country together before the eyes of the world. In any case, no capable “opposition” is visible anywhere. Every day that Iran fights and does not capitulate is a defeat for Washington.
In the past, one was always right to stand in solidarity with those who were spat upon by the media, transatlanticists, and friends of Israel: Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Assad, the Corona deniers, the Russians, and Putin of course. In the struggle for the right of self-determination of sovereign peoples and a more just world order, I have long stood at Iran’s side. I was there several years ago and participated in an international conference in Mashhad. I encountered a people who, despite sanctions, have preserved their joie de vivre, their hospitality, and their national pride. Today my wishes and prayers are with them. With God’s help, Satan will break his teeth on the land of the Aryans.
(Translated from the German)