The Sovereignty Loophole: Securitization, State-Sponsored Terrorism, and the Discursive Construction of the Iranian Threat

Abstract

How do states legally and ethically justify the use of counter-terrorism warfare against sovereign Westphalian states? Traditional national security ethics, anchored in Just War Theory, struggles to accommodate the "State Sponsor of Terrorism" (SST) designation, frequently accepting it as an objective description of material reality. Intervening in Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS), this article introduces the concept of the "Sovereignty Loophole." Utilizing Securitization Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), it demonstrates that the SST label functions not as an empirical fact, but as a highly weaponized, discursively produced speech act. By examining U.S. discourse surrounding Iran between 1984 and 2026, this study traces how the unprecedented designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) blurred the legal boundaries between sovereign statecraft and non-state terrorism. Furthermore, it examines transnational audience acceptance through allied counter-terrorism designations in Australia and Europe. The article argues that this discursive hybridity creates a normative space where the language of counter-terrorism is mobilized to bypass traditional inter-state constraints (jus ad bellum and jus in bello), legally sanitizing the targeted assassination of state officials and the devastation of state infrastructure. Ultimately, this article reveals how SST discourse enables hegemonic powers to unleash the destructive capabilities of conventional inter-state warfare while claiming the legal and ethical impunity of global counter-terrorism.