Iran's foreign ministry called the American strikes on its crude carriers a war crime and a breach of the United Nations Charter on 9 September1. Those strikes disabled five Iranian tankers the day before, and US Central Command had disabled two more and destroyed a third on 5 September. The objection therefore runs to a standing method rather than to one morning's strikes.
The charge is a legal claim rather than a rhetorical one, and Tehran has chosen its ground. Article 2(4) of the Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity of a state, and Washington's answer is self-defence under Article 51, which permits force in response to an armed attack. Both arguments are on the record, neither has a forum, and the Security Council seat where such a complaint would be heard is the same one that received Iran's nuclear file two days earlier.
Iran arrives at the Council as a complainant weeks after arriving as a respondent, and the two capitals whose vetoes protect it from the second are the ones it needs to advance the first.
