J. Budziszewki provides a balanced inquiry into the war of today.
Just war tradition embraces a series of principles, first concerning whether a given war may be started in the first place (jus ad bellum), second as to how it must be fought (jus in bello).
It has been said that the first casualty of war is truth. I wonder whether we should say instead that the first casualty of war is clear reasoning, even on the part of intelligent and knowledgeable people.
On the one hand, we have the Pope’s warning that God does not listen to those who wage war. On the other hand, we have the president’s warning of a possible end to Iranian civilization. Neither is helpful.
The Pope speaks as though he had forgotten that the Church distinguishes between just and unjust wars, and that justice in war does not require that nobody is hurt. In turn, the president speaks as though he had forgotten that there is a difference between defeating an adversary and destroying his entire civilization, and that one must not do what is intrinsically evil so that good will result.
In charity, I will assume that neither of these two men meant what his words seemed to mean. The question remains: Is the war in Iran just?
In order to apply the principles of just war—principles, by the way, to which not only the Church but also the United States has formally committed itself, including them in the training of its officers—we must bring the facts to mind and keep them there. An obvious fact is that the United States is far from perfect. The more salient fact, however, is that the Iranian regime is not just imperfect. Iran is ruled by terroristic fanatics who systematically undermine peace in the region, already possess missiles that can hit Europe, are very close to the achievement of nuclear weapons by which they can threaten and utterly destroy their neighbors, and have a history of negotiating in bad faith.
Let us also dismiss the cynics, relativists, and believers in moral equivalency. A terrorist is not just a freedom fighter by another name, for the term “terrorist” has an objective meaning. Terrorists refuse to abide by the principles of just war, although they may opportunistically employ the language of just war and international law in order to advance their aims. The Iranian regime is properly called terroristic because it routinely targets innocents and noncombatants, explicitly preaches hatred and death, and supplies and funds terror groups in other nations.
