Can bombing Iran satisfy just-war criteria?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 23, 2025

Once again the US is at war in the volatile Middle East. Once again politicians—who should know better, after the unrelieved disasters of the past 25 years—are happily endorsing “regime change.” Once again there is talk of putting US troops on the ground in Iran.

Before succumbing to war fever, could we please stop and ask a few elementary questions? What are we doing in Iran? Why? Is an American offensive morally justifiable?

Rather than pretend to know the details of the military situation—about which the available information is cloudy, contradictory, and very clearly coming from partisan sources—I propose to explore these questions in the light of just-war theory.

Just-war theory is remarkably sophisticated and nuanced. Serious thinkers have reflected on these issues for centuries, and produced a detailed moral analysis based on natural law. Questions about proper military conduct inevitably involve prudential decisions, based on the best available information. Since the information available is never entirely reliable, and since good people can reach different decisions on prudential judgments, the just-war theory provides an ideal framework for debate. (In July I will begin a multi-part discussion of just-war theory on my Substack, inviting subscribers to join in the discussion.)

Perhaps the most fundamental principle of just-war theory is that warfare should only be undertaken for a serious cause: to right a grave wrong, to repel a blatant and unjustifiable aggression. The Catechism (2309) stipulates: “the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.”

Immediately the question arises: What is the “lasting, grave, and certain” damage that Iran is causing? President Trump has been clear and consistent in saying that Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. I fully share the desire to keep Iran out of the nuclear club. But does that desire constitute a moral justification for war?

(Israel might make a separate argument to justify war against Iran, since the Teheran government has long subsidized Hamas and Hezbollah in their atrocious acts of terrorism against the Israeli people. But in the current conflict, Prime Minister Netanyahu, too, has focused on the necessity of stopping the Iranian nuclear program.)

Again, I don’t want the mullahs in Teheran to have nuclear weapons. But I also don’t want India and Pakistan and North Korea and China and Russia and France and for that matter the US to have nuclear weapons. I wish we could eliminate all nukes; I think most sane people share that dream. But no one has produced a realistic proposal for worldwide disarmament, and sometimes in this life one must make the best of an unhappy situation.

Iran would be a particularly dangerous, bellicose member of the nuclear club. But would that fact alone justify war against the Mullahs, when we have allowed many other nations to acquire nuclear capability? I am searching for a principle here. What makes Iran so uniquely evil—worse, say, than North Korea—that warfare is justified to curb its nuclear program? What is the “lasting, grave, and certain” damage that an Iranian nuclear program would cause?

Obviously if Iran developed and used a nuclear weapon, the moral calculus would change considerably. But for now we are talking about a pre-emptive war, to prevent a future problem. In fact we are not really talking about a pre-emptive war to stop an Iranian nuclear launch; we are now bombing Iran to forestall the possibility that they could, sometime in the future, launch a nuclear strike.

Would Iran, having gained nuclear capacity, use those weapons? Maybe so. But is it a certainty? If not, any moral case for pre-emptive warfare collapses.

As is so often the case in questions involving military options, we do not have all the information we need to make confident judgments. Would the mullahs use nukes aggressively, or would they be content to keep them as a deterrent—as we do? We don’t know for certain. Are they (or were they) very close to achieving nuclear capacity? We don’t know for certain. Wildly contradictory reports have circulated, and after having been enticed into one military campaign to eliminate “weapons of mass destruction” which did not exist, a measure of skepticism is warranted.

Even after the use of US “bunker-buster” bombs, there are contradictory reports about the success of the American air strikes. While Trump claims that the nuclear-enrichment facilities have been demolished, Iranian officials reply that the damage was minor, the facilities survived, and crucial equipment had already been moved off-site. Both sides have obvious political motives for saying that they have succeeded. Since at least the time of Aeschylus, wise men have recognized that “truth is the first casualty of war.”

Justified or not, successful or not, the military campaign has already begun. The great challenge now is to find a way to secure a just peace before the escalating conflict causes more casualties. At his Sunday public audience Pope Leo said that “every member of the international community has a moral responsibility to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable chasm.”

Just a few short weeks ago, analysts in Washington were asking whether President Trump would stop an Israeli strike against Iran. Israel struck. Then the question was whether Trump would authorize US involvement. The US struck. Now the questions are whether the US military will put “boots on the ground,” and pursue the elusive goal of regime change. The momentum is all in the wrong direction.