Are We In a Just War? By Dr. J. Luis Dizon
The present war in the Middle East and Pope Leo’s intervention in said war has sparked a great deal of discussion among Catholics regarding Just War theory. Both sides have invoked Just War theory either to justify the current war, or condemn it. No less than Vice President J.D. Vance has invoked Just War theory to try and rebuke the Pope for speaking out against the war.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has also weighed in, clarifying the Church’s position on Just War Theory, and affirming the Pope’s stance that the present war does not meet the conditions for a just war.
In light of this, we must ask: whose invocation of Just War theory is really legitimate? Also, doesn’t the very fact that a Just War tradition exists in Catholic social teaching go against the Pope’s claim that war is evil? To the latter, we can say not at all. It is a great mistake to think that, simply because exceptions exist to a rule, that the rule is not actually true. The Old Testament says “you shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13) and yet it is filled with details on situations where killing is indeed legitimate (idolatry, false prophecy, etc.). This doesn’t mean that the original commandment is false, only that there are exceptions to it. This gets at the heart of the problem when war proponents appeal to Just War theory—the theory is inherently an attempt at finding exceptions to the general rule that war is evil.
Besides, Jesus Himself spoke in such generalities when it came to war and violence: “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9) and “all who take the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Certainly, no one would think Jesus was contradicting the Bible or being too imprecise when He said these words. We intuitively understand that exceptional cases do not invalidate these statements. Why should we think any differently when the Pope speaks the same way?
Finally, it should be noted that previous popes have spoken in a similar manner. Surely they could not all be ignorant of the Church’s just war tradition? And it isn’t modern popes who have spoken this way either, as we have Pope Nicholas I in the 9th century commenting that “war is always satanic in its origin and you must always abstain from it” (while making proviso for self-defense).
That being said, what exactly is a Just War? What conditions can possibly make war just? This is a question which Christian theologians throughout history have pondered, including doctors of the Church such as Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The synthesis of these saints’ writings can be found in paragraphs 2307-2317 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. How this section begins is instructive for us: “Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.” (CCC 2307). From this, we may surmise that our default stance towards war should be that it is unjust, and that it is better to avoid it if at all possible. When evaluating the justice of any particular war, the burden of proof rests on those who think the war is just, not on those who think it is unjust.
The next paragraph gives the exception to this default stance: “All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, ‘as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’” (CCC 2308, quoting GS 79.4). Here, permission to wage war in self-defense is given, but only as a last resort. Engaging in war, even a just and necessary war, should always be taken with grief in one’s heart over the fact that it has to come to violence.
The next paragraph (CCC 2309) lies at the heart of the Church’s teaching on Just War doctrine. It lays out succintly four conditions for a war to be just, as taught by the Doctors of the Church. In order to count as a just war, one must satisfy all four criteria, not just one or two, and it must do so clearly and unequivocally. Some war proponents may argue that this sets the bar too high. The response to this argument is that the bar is supposed to be high. The entire point of Just War doctrine is that it is looking for exceptions to the normally unjust nature of war. If the bar is not set high, then the basic premise that war is usually unjust is called into question, and worldly rulers may too easily exploit Just War doctrine to justify themselves. By the principles of Just War theory, we should expect just wars to be rare, especially in our day and age. In fact, one can argue that the only country that presently meets all the criteria is Ukraine in its defense against Russia (although a discussion of the merits of Ukraine’s war of self-defense is too far beyond the scope of the present article).
Having said that, it is worth looking at each of the four conditions listed to see whether the USA and Israel’s war with Iran satisfies these criteria:
1) The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain. Of the four criteria, this is possibly the most defensible from the US/Israeli point of view, although even this is not completely airtight. Iran has support proxy groups (Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Assa’d Syria) that engage in terrorist activities. While Iran has not directly engaged the USA or Israel in these proxy conflicts, their funding and arming of these groups does make them culpable for their war crimes. Furthermore, Iran has terrorized its own people by killing thousands of its citizens for protesting against it and demanding their freedom (the exact number of those killed is still a matter of debate, but lower estimates from Iran International put it at around 6,000, with some claiming as high as 30,000).
Also, there is widespread concern regarding Iran’s uranium enrichment program. While we do not have irrefutable evidence that Iran is currently producing nuclear weapons, the World Nuclear Association reports that Iran has 440.9kg of uranium enriched at up to 60% U-235, which is far above what is necessary for nuclear reactors. As the Arms Control Association notes, the only reason one would enrich uranium at that level is if one intended to use it for nuclear weapons. They have also been declared by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be in breach of its non-proliferation obligations, which it signed on to in the 70s.
Given the above facts, there is widespread debate over whether this constitutes grounds for a just pre-emptive strike. The anti-war position argues that a preventative war based on the mere possibility that nuclear weapons may be produced in the future is not justifiable. Just War theorists have long held that preventative wars are not justified, because otherwise, any paranoid ruler can invade another country on the pretext of preventing dangers to their national security (e.g. Russia). The pro-war position, on the other hand, argues that the facts of the matter are sufficient to prove that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons, and given the grave danger posed by nuclear weapons, it would be foolish to wait until there was irrefutable evidence of such weapons, because by then it would be too late.
Given the above facts, one could plausibly lay claim to just cause on the basis of Iran’s arming of proxies, massacres of its own citizens, and credible evidence that they may be attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, most war proponents will cite these very facts in support of war with Iran. However, this means that at best, one of the four criteria has been satisfied, and as we mentioned before, all four must be met, or else we do not have a just war. This brings us to the next criterion…
2) All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. This is where the case for the Iran war begins to be on shaky grounds. War proponents argue that diplomatic solutions have been exhausted in attempting to bring down Iran’s bellicosity. However, there is one crucial fact that undermines this argument: The first bombs were dropped on February 28, right as the USA was in the middle of negotiations with Iran! If the USA believed that they could accomplish peace by negotiating with Iran, then why did they prematurely disrupt such negotiations? And if the USA did not believe that they could accomplish peace by negotiating, then why were they even trying? Was it all a ruse? If so, then the USA was negotiating in bad faith, which undermine their moral authority. In any case, it cannot be shown that they have exhausted other means of preventing war.
It should also be noted that negotiations with Iran have met with some limited success in the past. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action (JCPOA) which was negotiated under President Obama is an interesting case in point. The fact sheet above highlights the successes of the JCPOA:
The JCPOA verification regime was effective at providing transparency into Iran’s nuclear program, which allowed Iran to raise confidence that it was not producing nuclear weapons. The JCPOA blocked the two paths to accumulate weapons-grade fissile material for a nuclear weapon: enriching uranium-235 to 90% purity or higher and separating plutonium. In fact, the plutonium-related provisions of the JCPOA were of such merit that after the United States’ withdrawal in 2018, the Trump administration issued sanctions waivers for several years, ensuring the United Kingdom and China could continue to modify Iran’s heavy water reactor at the Arak Nuclear Complex without being subject to economic penalties. As originally designed, the Arak reactor could have produced enough plutonium from its spent fuel for one or two nuclear weapons per year, but the JCPOA closed off the plutonium path.
Unfortunately, President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA on 2018, which has effectively cast off any restraints that had previously been placed upon Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Such a decision is regrettable, as the JCPOA is proof that war is not necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that Iran is amenable to negotiations aimed at preventing their acquisition. In light of this, who is to say that the negotiations that were prematurely cut off on February 28 would have been a failure? Thus, one can conclusively say that the USA and Israel’s military attack fails the second criterion for just war.
3) There must be serious prospects of success. The evaluation of this particular criterion is hampered by the fact that it is not altogether clear what the USA and Israel’s war goals actually are. If the goal is regime change, then the war is failing spectacularly, as not only has the regime not been toppled, but has actually doubled down on its hold on power with the installation of Mojtaba Khameini as the new supreme leader. If the goal is preventing nuclear weapons, then the war is actually redundant since Iran’s uranium enrichment capablities had already been severely compromised by last year’s Israel-Iran war, and in any case, negotiations have been shown to be effective at preventing nuclear acquisition (see above). And if the goal is to open up the Strait of Hormuz, the strait was open before the war started, so at this point the war is now being waged to solve a problem that the war itself created.
On this note, a long view of US involvement in regime change overseas is warranted. It is an irrefutable fact that virtually every US involvement in the Middle East and Central Asia in the past 25 years has been an abysmal failure. In 2001, the USA went into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and replace them with a democratic regime, only for the newly installed regime to prove to be highly corrupt, incompetent, and incapable of surviving without US assistance. It is no surprise then that it toppled mere weeks after the USA withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. In 2003, the USA went into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, only to create massive instability in the region, a massive uptick in terrorist activity (culminating in the rise of ISIS), and a mass exodus of Iraqi Christians from the country (down from 1.5 million in 2003 to just 250,000 today). And this is to say nothing of the war crimes perpetrated by US soldiers on Iraqi civilians.
The USA’s track record of military involvement in the region shows that whenever it attempts to impose its will, it only results in further regional instability and a turning of public opinion among the affected populace against America and the West. It is highly unlikely that Iran will be any different, and those who argue that it will be different have a heavy burden of proof to show otherwise.
4) The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. This is by far the weightiest factor to consider in the current conflict. The addition of the second sentence in this clause is meant to highlight the recognition made by many Just War theorists today that it is incredibly difficult to act proportionally and prevent unnecessary civilian deaths in modern warfare. This is because bombs (especially atomic bombs) are indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction, as evidenced in Dresden, Cologne, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. One may attempt to take out a military target only to wipe out hundreds of civilians living in the surrounding area. The killing of 150 schoolgirls in the Minab girls’ school is a prime example of this. Even if not intended, such deaths show the utter carelessness with which much modern warfare is waged, and the near impossibility of maintaining proportionality in such warfare. The Catechism actually dedicates an entire paragraph specifically on such indiscriminate weapons the the danger of using them:
“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons—especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons—to commit such crimes. (CCC 2314, citing GS 80.3)
This highlights another principle of Just War that the Catechism teaches, which is the absolute necessity of moral conduct during war: “The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. ‘The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties’” (CCC 2312, citing GS 79.4). It is possible to enter a war for just causes, only to lose the moral high ground in the way it conducts its war. A great example of this is the latest Gaza War. Israel had just cause to stop Hamas from attacking civilians and to rescue their hostages, but quickly lost its moral footing as soon as boots hit the ground in Gaza.
Pro-war advocates may argue that such deaths, while unfortunate, are a necessary side effect of preventing the greater evils that Iran may cause. At this point, however, it is extremely difficult to prove such a claim. After all, the whole point (allegedly) is to prevent Iran from killing people—whether its own or that of other countries. Isn’t killing civilians to prevent the killing of civilians self-defeating? And who is to say that the USA and Israel will not cause more deaths in its attempt to stop Iran than what Iran itself has already inflicted? After all, as we already established, neither the USA nor Israel have a good track record on that precise point.
At this point war proponents argue that it is the President’s prerogative to determine whether or not a war is being waged justly by citing the last sentence of paragraph 2309 out of context: “The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.” On the basis of this sentence, they wrongly assume that the President can unilaterally judge a war to be just without listening to the Pope or the USCCB. However, this is a grave error because it ignores the fact that the Church has consistently taught in many other places that it is the Church’s duty to guide the moral reasoning of rulers, and it is the responsibility of rulers to listen to that guidance. Consider the following statements:
“As far as Catholics are concerned, the decision rests primarily with those who take a leading part in the life of the community, and in these specific fields. They must, however, act in accordance with the principles of the natural law, and observe the Church's social teaching and the directives of ecclesiastical authority. For it must not be forgotten that the Church has the right and duty not only to safeguard her teaching on faith and morals, but also to exercise her authority over her sons by intervening in their external affairs whenever a judgment has to be made concerning the practical application of this teaching.” (Pacem in Terris, 160)
“From God has the duty been assigned to the Church not only to interpose resistance, if at any time the State rule should run counter to religion, but, further, to make a strong endeavor that the power of the Gospel may pervade the law and institutions of the nations. And inasmuch as the destiny of the State depends mainly on the disposition of those who are at the head of affairs, it follows that the Church cannot give countenance or favor to those whom she knows to be imbued with a spirit of hostility to her; who refuse openly to respect her rights; who make it their aim and purpose to tear asunder the alliance that should, by the very nature of things, connect the interests of religion with those of the State.” (Sapientiae Christianiae, 31)
Maybe these statements do not matter to Donald Trump, since he is not Catholic, but they should certainly matter to all of the professing Catholics in his orbit—Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and of course, the closest Catholic to the President, First Lady Melania trump. This also applies to every single citizen of the United States who professes to be Catholic, especially those who voted for Trump. If they truly believe their Catholic faith, they will heed the Church’s call to obey her teachings on this matter.
Finally, there is one last refuge that war proponents rest in to maintain their case, and that is to make a distinction between the moral teaching of the Church and her prudential decisions. Bishop Barron makes this precise argument on social media, criticizing the President for disrespecting the Pope, while still defending his policy decisions by stating: “It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the moral life. In regard to the concrete application of those principles, people of good will can and do disagree.” This would be a more compelling argument if it can be shown that war proponents were actively attempting to align the USA’s goals and conduct with Just War principles. But that is not what we see happening. Rather, what we see is the President deciding to wage war without any regard for the principles of justice, and war proponents attempting to shoehorn that decision into Just War doctrine after the fact—sloppily and very selectively, one may add.
In summary, if we examine the present war between the USA, Israel and Iran according to the principles of Just War, we may conclude that out of the four key principles laid out by Just War doctrine, the USA and Israel can only plausibly be said to pass the first criteria. They cannot be shown to clearly and unequivocally pass on the other three. It follows from this that the war is not a just one, and both Pope Leo XIV and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are right to call it out as such. Catholics have a duty to inform themselves of the principles underlying this decision, to form their consciences based on those principles, and call for our leaders to conform their decisions to the principles of divine justice. This is the only way we can attain peace in our world today.
by: Dr. Luis Dizon -
About: J. Luis Dizon has a Master of Theological Studies from the Toronto School of Theology and a Ph.D in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto. He does research and writing on topics relating to apologetics, Biblical studies, and comparative religions. He also works as a lay pastoral associate and sacramental preparation instructor for a Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Toronto. He has also been a regular guest on the Youtube program "Reason and Theology" You can follow his posts on Facebook: Fisher219 X: LuisDizon
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