Voices from the Arab press: Attacking civilians is never justified

Iran's missile and drone attack on Bahrain and Kuwait crossed a dangerous legal and moral threshold. Whatever explanations Tehran offers, the reality remains that neither country was a belligerent party to the conflict, yet a civilian airport in Kuwait was struck, and innocent civilians paid the price.

Attempts to justify the attack by pointing to the presence of foreign military facilities fundamentally misunderstand the principles of sovereignty that govern international relations. Every independent state has the right to enter into defense partnerships and host foreign forces if it believes doing so serves its security interests. Turkey, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Britain, Italy, and Spain all host foreign military installations, yet no one argues that this grants other countries the right to attack their territory. International law is clear: sovereign nations decide their own security arrangements.

What is far more troubling is the effort to shift responsibility from the aggressor to the victim, transforming a discussion about missile attacks on sovereign territory into a debate about the choices of the country that was attacked. Such reasoning opens the door to international chaos and undermines the foundations of the modern state system. Kuwait has categorically rejected Iranian claims that its territory or airspace was used for hostile actions, stripping away the political rationale behind the strike.

Moreover, civilian airports are not military targets; they are essential public infrastructure serving travelers, commerce, and ordinary citizens. When they come under attack, civilians become casualties of conflicts in which they have no part. The issue, therefore, is not foreign bases but respect for sovereignty itself. A state cannot claim to respect sovereign rights while simultaneously launching missiles at other countries because it disapproves of their sovereign decisions. When sovereignty is violated in this way, silence becomes a form of complicity.

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Nothing is more dangerous than wasting opportunities except wasting crises, and Lebanon has mastered both. For decades, the country has allowed political, financial, and militia interests to squander moments that might have produced real change.