Let me start with an obvious observation: I hate war. Anyone who doesn’t hate war is in serious need of psychological help. I think war is evil. Period. However, sometimes war is necessary to prevent or end a greater evil.
In the years before World War II, two British prime ministers pursued foreign policies based on the theory that anything is preferable to war. They did everything in their power to appease the insatiable appetite of the megalomaniacal dictator of Nazi Germany. It is a historical fact that Britain and France, the victors of the Great War, could easily have dealt with Germany when it began violating the Treaty of Versailles. In 1935, when Germany remilitarized the Rhineland, Britain and France were many times more powerful than Germany and could have eliminated the Nazi threat without difficulty. According to General Heinz Guderian, one of Germany’s greatest generals of that period, “If you French had intervened… we should have been sunk.”
William L. Shirer, in his classic work, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” writes
“Blomberg, backed by Jodl and most of the officers at the top, wanted to pull back the three battalions that had crossed the Rhine. As Jodl testified at Nuremberg, “Considering the situation we were in, the French covering army could have blown us to pieces.”
Had the French marched, says Shirer in the following paragraph
It could have—and had it, that almost certainly would have been the end of Hitler, after which history might have taken quite a different and brighter turn than it did, for the dictator could never have survived such a fiasco. Hitler himself admitted as much. “A retreat on our part,” he conceded later, “would have spelled collapse.”
But the Allies did not march. They preferred to “keep the peace.”
In just a few short years, Germany became an existential threat that started a second world war, defeated France, conquered almost all of continental Europe, almost defeated Great Britain, devastated the Soviet Union, and was directly responsible for between 15 and 20 million civilian deaths. Avoiding the “horror of war” in 1935 resulted in absolute disaster for the world.
This proves a critical point: there are very few absolutes in this world. To put it another way, context matters.
Recently, the leader of the Catholic world, Pope Leo, made some strong statements about the war in Iran. The Pope took a strong stance against war in general and against the war in Iran in particular. I agree with his general idea: peace is generally preferable to war. But that is not always possible or even desirable.
The war in Iran is not only justified; it is required. The Pope is wrong on many levels.
Let’s begin with the context. Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapon. How do we know this? Uranium enrichment for civilian use requires what is known as “Low Enrichment Uranium” and is about 3-5% enriched. To develop a nuclear weapon, you need 90% enrichment. Iran was at 60%, which is a mere hop, skip, and a jump from 90%. There is no reason to go to 60% if you intend to use it for civilian power. The conclusion is simple and clear: Iran is out to acquire a nuclear weapon.
On top of that, Iran has been openly developing ballistic missile technology.
Is there a single sane individual who believes a nuclear Iran will not try to use it to, at the very least, blackmail the world? With ballistic missiles, they could hit Europe and eventually even the United States.
Iran’s regime is homicidal. They kill their own people without a second thought. They openly threaten the United States and its allies. They have been indiscriminately sending missiles against countries that did nothing to them.
To put it clearly, the leadership of Iran is acting like psychotic, homicidal, serial murdering maniacs and have been for almost 50 years.
Given this context, the only crime here would have been not to attack Iran and allow it to threaten the United States and the world with weapons of mass destruction. Pope Leo wants peace, and so do I. The only way to preserve the peace and secure the safety of civilization is to remove the threat.
The Pope couched his arguments in religious terms. For example, he stated, “God does not bless any conflict.” Really? Let’s see how true that is.
When the Plishtim (Philistines) threatened Israel, they had one champion, a giant named Golyos (Goliath). One person, a youth named David, went out against him. Golyos insulted him and Hashem. David answered (I Sam. 17:46), “This very day G-d will deliver you into my hands. I will kill you and cut off your head, and I will give the carcasses of the Philistine camp to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. All the earth shall know that there is a God in Israel.”
Well, we all know how that conflict turned out. Did G-d not bless that conflict?
How about Joshua’s conquest of Israel? Did G-d not bless those conflicts?
How about Abraham’s miraculous victory against the four kings to liberate his nephew? Did G-d not bless that conflict?
G-d blesses righteous conflict. Anyone reading the bible knows that.
The Pope also said, “No cause can justify the shedding of innocent blood.” While innocents need to be protected, war inevitably causes innocent casualties. That is why war is inherently evil. But, is the Pope’s statement correct from a religious/biblical standpoint? I suggest the Pope review what he calls the “Old Testament.” He might find the book of D’Varim (Deuteronomy) instructive.
War is horrible. War is evil. No sane person wants war. But no sane person wants to live under the threat of annihilation. No person should live under the threat of annihilation. Iran wants to acquire the means to do just that to the Western democracies.
The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens. Iran is an existential threat to the United States and its allies, no less than Nazi Germany was. The US has not only the right, but the duty to remove that threat to its citizens and allies.
The Pope is wrong. Period. He is wrong on moral, religious, and ethical grounds. His reading of G-d’s word is in direct conflict with the text of the bible. His opinion is advocacy of societal self-destruction by way of ignoring the most basic reality of all: sometimes you need to fight fire with hotter fire. That’s what the Allies did in World War II, and that is what the United States is doing right now. We were right then, and we are, by G-d, right now.