A dangerous threshold has been crossed. Israel’s recent aerial and cyber strikes on Iran’s atomic energy facilities signal more than another chapter in the Middle Eastern conflict, only to be escalated by the US bombings of three key sites late Saturday. They mark the unravelling of one of the few remaining global red lines: the sanctity of nuclear infrastructure. The implications go far beyond them. The entire international system — already strained by great-power rivalries, weakened institutions, and regional fragmentation — now teeters closer to collapse.

Nuclear sites — whether for energy, research, or enrichment — have long enjoyed de facto immunity from military targeting, not out of sentimentality, but out of sheer existential risk. The Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s related facilities, especially in Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow sites, which reportedly included bunker-buster munitions and cyber-attacks, represent a deliberate breach of this understanding.

Iran’s immediate retaliatory missile strikes, which penetrated once-impeccable Israeli defenses, further underscore the normalization of catastrophic escalation. This tit-for-tat exchange has taken place in a context where international legal norms are increasingly eroded by power politics. Most alarming is not simply the military action, but the global reaction: muted, ambivalent, and in many cases, complicit.

Sadly, the response of leaders of Western powers amount to trampling of truth, nuclear sanctity, and rules-based order. US President Donald Trump dismissed the congressional testimony of his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, and said he did not care what she said. In his view, Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear bomb.

It was German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who unveiled all Western ignominy and explained why. In comments to German media at the G7 summit, Merz said it was “dirty work Israel is doing for all of us” by carrying out strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, Deutsche Welle reported on June 17. Worse, instead of criticizing Israel for violating international law and risking nuclear contamination, Merz shocked the rest of the world by stressing: “I can only say I have the greatest respect for the fact that the Israeli army and the Israeli government had the courage to do this.”

Yet in international law, such “courage” and action Merz cited are critical breaches of rules, violations of laws, and attacks on humanity and the environment, spelling consequential disasters.

Still, Trump took the decision to strike Iran’s atomic energy sites, boasting of US capability with “mother of all bombs” to strike Fordow facilities, which reveals respect for international law, other’s life and sovereignty, and disasters for the rest of the global community.

The Western community's response has exposed a deep hypocrisy. When Russian forces operated near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in Ukraine, Western capitals erupted with outrage, invoking fears of nuclear catastrophe and triggering sanctions. Yet the strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites — undeniably illegal under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter — were met with equivocation. The very credibility of international law is collapsing under the weight of selective enforcement.

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As American critics pointed out, the presumption that Iran is close to developing nuclear weaponry has been circulated by Israel and the United States for at least a decade, if not three decades, right before Iran and the US and Germany entered into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Then it was the US under Trump’s first term that broke its promise to Iran and other signatories, if not the whole world.

Meanwhile, Israel has been widely believed to have developed close to 100 nuclear warheads. Just before the Israeli surprise attacks on June 13, Iranian authorities were analyzing heavy loads of secret intelligence they managed to acquire on original revelations of Israel’s nuclear weaponry. In the face of Israeli threat to all Muslim nations in the Middle East, leaders of Western powers have been silent, if not encouraging. And they have been burying a rare outcry from Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi on June 13 that "nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment".

The US and Germany reveal to the whole world their ominous acceptance of, and support for, Israeli atrocities at a critical time, and the fatuous nature of their flouting and disrespect for rules-based order their predecessors once touted as norms for all human beings. By trampling international rules and norms on sovereignty and sanctity of atomic energy, Israel, the US, and Germany are destroying their own credibility, if not causing worries about the future safety of nuclear facilities, and the dire future of humanity.

The precedent set by Israel will not remain geographically contained. Nuclear armament and the rhetoric of pre-emptive strike doctrine may be picked up by more countries.

In this landscape of uncertainty, China and the Arab world took a principled stance, condemning the Israeli strikes as a violation of the UN Charter and calling for the observance of international norms prohibiting attacks on nuclear infrastructure under any circumstances. This position resonates with other members of the Global South, where resentment is growing against perceived Western double standards. This call is not simply rhetorical. It offers a blueprint for what a post-Western multilateral order could look like — one grounded in equity, sovereignty, and universal application of international law.

Yet the danger of strategic nihilism is now real. The threshold to catastrophe is being lowered in plain sight. If the targeting of nuclear sites becomes an accepted part of warfare, no region, no matter how diplomatically neutral, is immune. The Middle East may be the epicenter today, but the shockwaves will reach other regions tomorrow. This is not just a question of war or peace. It is about the future of mankind and whether we still believe in the idea of shared norms that transcend might.

The time has come for the Global South, including China, to move beyond condemnation and passive diplomacy. The threats posed by the collapse of nuclear restraint are too grave to be left to the usual diplomatic cycles. Practical, enforceable mechanisms must be established to prevent further acts of such nature. Enhancement of international frameworks should be globalized or institutionalized through the United Nations or aligned with the China-proposed Global Security Initiative, where all nations come together to ensure the security of each, one another and all.

Moreover, the role of IAEA should be consolidated at the UN General Assembly, reaffirming that all strategic civilian infrastructure — nuclear facilities, dams, digital centers, and energy hubs — must be declared off-limits, regardless of war or provocation, with due punishments for violating nations or parties.

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The era of restraint is ending. A new architecture must rise in its place. The Global South cannot afford to be a bystander to the world’s descent into strategic chaos. It must be its antidote. Time is no longer a luxury — it is a responsibility, for Western powers as well.

The author is a PhD in political science from the Department of Fundamental and Inter-Disciplinary Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.