TEHRAN – The war imposed on Iran by the United States and Israel has now moved from the battlefield to the courtroom of diplomacy, with a new battle over history, responsibility and money unfolding at the United Nations Security Council.
On Friday, November 13, the Council convened at Bahrain’s request to examine the consequences of the Persian Gulf conflict for regional security and international shipping. What was billed as a technical discussion on navigation quickly turned into a political trial over who started the war, who defended legitimately, and — ultimately — who should pay for it.
At the center of the session stood two radically opposed narratives: one presented by Persian Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi, demanding accountability and full reparations from Iran; the other advanced by Iran’s Deputy Permanent Representative Gholamhossein Darzi, who described Iran as the victim of two rounds of unprovoked aggression and warned that any new attack would be met with an “immediate and decisive” response against its source.
The fact that the meeting was convened at Bahrain’s request was itself significant. Manama, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been among the most vocal Persian Gulf capitals in accusing Tehran, while Tehran accuses Manama of placing its territory, airspace and facilities at the disposal of American and Israeli forces for strikes on Iran that began on February 28, 2026.
Al-Budaiwi told the Council that more than 7,000 missiles and drones had been employed by the Iranian government in attacks on Council member states since February 28, striking airports, ports, energy installations and residential areas. He called on the Security Council to follow up the implementation of Resolution 2817, to hold the perpetrators accountable and to oblige the Islamic Republic to pay full compensation.
Resolution 2817, adopted after Iran’s retaliatory operations against U.S. bases and assets in the region, has been portrayed by Persian Gulf states as the legal basis for condemnation and compensation. Tehran calls it a political product that ignores the origin of the crisis: the American-Israeli attacks themselves.
Iran’s envoy rejected the GCC reading outright. Darzi traced the crisis to U.S. and Israeli strikes in June 2025 and, on a far larger scale, from February 28, 2026, which he said killed more than 5,000 people in Iran, including 254 children and 251 women.
He stressed that Iran’s operations were carried out strictly within the framework of legitimate self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter and targeted U.S. bases and military equipment that had been used to attack Iran — not the sovereignty or territorial integrity of neighboring states.
Darzi described Resolution 2817 as “political,” arguing that if Washington wants negotiations to advance, it must stop attacks and lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and provide guarantees against repetition. He warned that any fresh attack by the U.S. or Israel would face an immediate and decisive response against its origin. He also named Bahrain and a number of regional countries as facilitators of the aggression and said Iran itself is entitled to compensation.
“More than 7,000 missiles and drones”: The bill
The GCC secretary-general’s figures were designed to dramatize scale: 7,000 projectiles, dozens of civilian and energy sites hit, shipping disrupted in one of the world’s most critical waterways. The message was clear: Iran’s response, not the initial attack, is presented as the threat to regional security and freedom of navigation.
This framing has been reinforced in recent weeks by economic assessments widely quoted in Persian Gulf and Western media. The commercial credit insurer Allianz Trade has estimated the economic losses of Arab Persian Gulf states resulting from Iranian attacks on those countries and on ships in regional waters at about 790 billion dollars through 2030. The same company put direct physical damage to more than 80 facilities in Arab regional states during the war at over 200 billion dollars, warning that “long-term costs will be much heavier.”
For Persian Gulf capitals, these numbers are intended to build a compensation case: to quantify victimhood and to internationalize it through the Security Council, insurers, and courts. For Tehran, they prove the opposite: that hosting a foreign war against a neighbor inevitably brings war home, and that those who volunteered as launchpads cannot then present themselves as innocent bystanders entitled to payment from the country they helped attack.
Iran insists it took no action against the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighbors. Its strikes, officials say, were aimed exclusively at the origin and starting point of attacks on Iran — American bases and American military assets that were used to strike Iranian territory.
Iran’s answer: Legitimate defense, not aggression
Tehran’s legal and political rebuttal was delivered in two venues almost simultaneously: in New York by Darzi, and in Tehran by Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.
Asked on the morning of November 15 about the compensation demands by some Arab states, Baghaei was dismissive and unsparing: “Do not take this claim too seriously; because they themselves know how baseless and lightweight this claim is.”
He warned the GCC states and its secretary-general to be careful “not to lance old wounds,” reminding them that “the memory of all-out support by regional countries for Saddam Hussein’s regime has not been erased from Iranians’ memory. That is an open file.”
Baghaei said there is now no doubt that some regional countries provided several hundred billion dollars to Saddam’s regime — arms assistance, political assistance and military assistance through the dispatch of forces and soldiers — all documented and constituting a historical claim of the Iranian people.
How, he asked, can countries that “actively participated in military aggression against a neighboring country and placed their airspace, soil and water at the disposal of aggressors against Iranian territory” speak of extracting compensation from Iran?
He pointed to explicit American admissions: “When American officials at the highest level, whether military or civilian, including the president, the secretary of state and the CENTCOM commander, explicitly declare that regional countries actively helped us and thank these countries, can they deny it? The evidence is very clear.”
According to Baghaei, damage inflicted on Iran, directly and indirectly, originated in part from some regional countries. Under international law, states that in any way, directly or indirectly, played a role in U.S. and Zionist regime military aggression against Iran are considered, under paragraph (f) of the annex to UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, as accomplices of the aggressors and partners in the crimes committed. “Therefore, it is we who demand compensation,” he said.
He added that all instances of regional countries’ assistance to the United States and the Zionist regime in attacking Iran have been documented and communicated directly to those countries through diplomatic channels. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will certainly pursue this matter seriously. The responsibility of this group of regional countries for the consequences of U.S. and Zionist regime military aggression against Iran is established.”
The point, he said, was so evident that even without American confessions and thanks it would have been clear to Tehran: “Missiles, drones and aircraft flown from military bases stationed in these countries, logistical and support assistance provided to the aggressor forces, and bases destroyed in these countries are all signs of their participation.”
$790 billion to 2030: The cost of hosting war
The Allianz Trade estimate — 790 billion dollars in economic losses to 2030 and more than 200 billion in direct physical damage to over 80 installations — has given the compensation debate a concrete, if highly contested, price tag.
Iranian officials do not dispute that war is costly. They dispute who should bear that cost. In Tehran’s view, Persian Gulf economic pain is the foreseeable consequence of a political choice: allowing national territory to be used as a forward operating base for a war of aggression against a neighbor of 90 million people, in a strait through which a fifth of the world’s oil and a large share of its liquefied natural gas normally pass.
From February onward, shipping, insurance premiums, port operations, aviation, tourism and energy investment across the southern Persian Gulf were all hit, even before physical strikes damaged tanks, loading arms, runways and terminals. To project those disruptions to 2030, as Allianz does, is to acknowledge that investors now price in a permanent risk premium for a region that chose to become a battlefield.
Tehran argues that this premium cannot be transferred to the defender. If Persian Gulf states had refused to host offensive operations, Iranian retaliation against U.S. assets on their soil would not have occurred. The chain of causation, Iranian diplomats say, begins on June 2025 and February 28, 2026 — not with the defensive response that followed.
Who owes whom? From Saddam to resolution 3314
The most elaborate legal counter-attack has come from international lawyer Reza Nasri, whose argument Tehran is now amplifying.
Nasri urges the GCC to recall the “either party” doctrine before sending another invoice to Iran — the same doctrine Persian Gulf states successfully used against Baghdad.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Arab Persian Gulf states insisted on a principle that has rarely been questioned since: the aggressor must pay. Security Council Resolution 687 held Iraq liable for “any direct loss, damage or injury” arising from its unlawful invasion. The UN Compensation Commission subsequently awarded a total of 52.4 billion dollars to about 1.5 million claimants.
The decisive point, Nasri writes, lies in Decision No. 7 of the Commission, which deemed compensable any loss resulting from “military operations or threat of military action by either party.” On that basis, Iraq paid both for destruction caused by its own forces and for damage caused by coalition bombing of Kuwait — because defensive military operations were considered a direct consequence of Iraq’s aggression. Saudi Arabia itself invoked the same “either party” formula before the Commission to obtain compensation for losses stemming from coalition operations launched from its soil.
Today, Nasri argues, Arab states have adopted a completely reversed position. They want Iran — the state attacked on February 28, 2026 — to pay for its defensive response, while the initiators of the war are exempted from any compensation. Why, he asks, was the aggressor in 1991 held responsible for damage caused by defenders’ bombs, but in 2026 the defender is expected to pay for its own defensive operation? Why did the “either party” formula then lead to the aggressor’s responsibility, but today to the victim’s responsibility?
If the precedent of Decision No. 7 is applied uniformly, host states would have no right to claim at all, Nasri contends. They are not impartial observers inadvertently caught between two belligerents. Under paragraph (f) of Article 3 of UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, a state that places its territory at the disposal of an aggressor state to commit an act of aggression itself commits an act of aggression. A state that allows its ports and air bases to be used as operational bases also loses its neutrality under the 1907 Hague Conventions — Convention V, Article 5; Convention XIII, Article 5. Such host states are co-belligerents aligned with the aggressors.