Nigeria, June 15 -- Pre-emptive attacks in international law are rarely justified. The threat must evince itself through an obvious intent to inflict injury, evidence preparations that show the threat to be what Michael Walzer calls a "supreme emergency", and arise in a situation where risk of defeat would be dramatically increased if force is not used.

Reaching an assessment on that matter is almost impossible. Evidence of such a threat by the aggressor state is bound to be speculative, concealing other strategic objectives that make that action amount to illegal, preventive war. Israel's ongoing attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure are taking place in the absence of nuclear weapons, motivated by the hypotheticalscenario that such w...