The war on Iran is unjust
Even if everything turns out for the best, that doesn’t grant a theological justification to starting a war.
Even before the bombs started falling on Tehran, many observers and pundits were saying that going to war with Iran (particularly under the present circumstances) would have disastrous consequences. Those people are almost certainly correct. From civilian deaths to the entrenchment (rather than replacement) of a hard-line regime in Iran and from global energy prices skyrocketing to apocalyptic environmental damage, this conflict is already showing that it will be a nightmare without a cleanly positive resolution. Given the complexity of the situation and the unforeseeable effects of violence as a force for change, it could hardly be otherwise even under the most competent leadership and with the best-laid plans, which are, of course, exactly what the United States doesn’t have.
However, the world is complicated, and the future is open. Maybe ten years from now we will have, mirabile dictu, a peaceful, democratic Iran and a less fractious and unstable Middle East with lots of lovely oil passing to world markets through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not very likely, but let’s imagine it for a moment. Would that have made this war a just one?
Conditions for war
The Christian tradition doesn’t speak with a single voice on matters of war and peace, but the main line of thought, beginning with St. Augustine, is that warmaking can be justified only under strict moral conditions. The key conditions are: there must be a just cause, it must be undertaken by those with rightful authority, and it must be done with right intentions. The current military action by the United States almost certainly fails on all three of these conditions.
Crucially, none of the three key conditions is about things turning out well. It is not the consequences but the principle of warmaking that determines whether you have the right to fight. This “just war theory” does include consideration of likely consequences (the probability of success, the proportionality of harms, etc.), but the hope – or even probability – of a desirable outcome cannot alone justify the use of violence. Even if Trump and Netanyahu’s war in Iran turns out great (and it won’t), it still will not have been justified.
Right at the heart of the Gospel is the conviction that violence does not redeem us or solve our problems. The true mystery at the centre of our faith is that – in a world that seeks redemption through subjecting others to violence – it was by Christ’s subjection to the world’s violence that our salvation was won. Under certain conditions, violence might be necessary to restrain greater violence, but we are called to be much more ready to undergo than to undertake deadly force. An unprovoked, asymmetrical war in which we rain down death in the hopes that somehow this will further the cause of justice cannot be a way of pursuing that call, even if it works out like we hoped (which it almost certainly won’t). We don’t have to wait for history’s verdict. We can say it now: this is an unjust war.
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I used to introduce high school students (a few were from pacifist families, but most Reformed) to the tradition of just war theory. Now it is touted by all sorts of people who don’t follow its principles. Thank you for this short summary and interpretation.
I appreciate Michael DeMoor’s insights on the war in Iran. Permit me a couple of observations.
Some good international law is rooted in just war theory. The late Rev. Herman Keizer, a Christian Reformed pastor who was a senior chaplain at the Pentagon during 9/11, said to me once that he needs the just war theory to teach soldiers rules of engagement in conflict. I accept that.
Where the just war theory fails—and, in my opinion, fails miserably—is when we elevate it to become the interpretive framework, the hermeneutic or lens, by which to analyze the dynamics of conflict. It gives the illusion of completeness. When we’ve assessed whether a specific conflict is morally “just” or not, in starting or conducting it, we consider our work done and move on.
As a lens for understanding war, the just war theory is extraordinarily feeble. In relation to the war in Iran, that lens causes us to miss confronting the fundamental ideologies driving the conflict, an ideology of guaranteed (or what Dwight Eisenhower called “absolute”) security, along with an ideology of unrestrained material prosperity pursued by societies that already experience unprecedented wealth. These are secular religious drives that overshoot or distort basic norms. Without this level of analysis, we miss the opportunity to join Pope Leo in his prophetic calling out the “delusion of omnipotence” leading to a “demonic cycle of evil” currently on display.
I challenge anyone to show me the rootedness of the just war theory in Scripture. It cannot be done.
Mark Vander Vennen is a representative of the Christian Reformed Church on the Management Committee of Project Ploughshares.
It is naive to put forward the notion of “just war” in this instance when the theocratic regime in power in Iran promotes a notion of “just” which promotes the total destruction of all other religious communities other than Islamic / Muslim societies.