The Unjust War with Iran

[00:00:02] With the launching of a US Israeli war against Iran, we're going to look at this conflict from both a moral and political perspective. [00:00:28] Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host and editor chief of Crisis magazine. [00:00:32] So today I want to talk about the war with Iran, which just started this past Saturday, February 28, 2026. [00:00:42] Before I do that, though, I just want to mention that this weekend, this coming weekend, on March 7th, I'm going to be in Dallas, Texas, at the Blessed Carl Symposium, and I'm going to be speaking, My topic is going to be Blessed Carl, Apostle of Peace. [00:00:57] So I'd just like to thank President Trump for making my talk extremely relevant. [00:01:02] Now, the topic was decided months ago. I had the talk written weeks ago. And so I'm not really going to be bringing in specifically this particular war, although I might mention a little bit, but no question that this war has given this talk a greater urgency and a great urgency to look towards Blessed Carl, who is right back here. [00:01:26] You can see him right there. He is right there. [00:01:28] I have a great devotion to Blessed Carl. He's great. And so I encourage you to come to, if you're in the Dallas area on Saturday, come and hear me talking. Some other great speakers, much better than me, but I'm particularly excited because I'm talking about Blessed Carl is the Apostle of peace, which is obviously relevant today. [00:01:49] Now, you know, before I get started, also, I just want to mention the most common criticism I receive, and I receive lots of them. And I also receive nice remarks as well. And so I, I, I appreciate when people give comments back to feedback to me, I mean, when they're just being stupid and, and childish or whatever, I just ignore that. But I like criticism. I like, you know, when people like what I do as well. But the number one criticism I get is most common one, is I like your Catholic commentary, but not your political takes. [00:02:25] So they like what I say about the church, what's going on in the church, the Vatican, maybe theology, whatever, but they don't like it when I talk about politics. And in fact, I've had a lot of people, not a lot. I mean, I say a lot, you know, maybe a dozen or two, something like that over the five years. [00:02:41] But a number of people who have said, could you just not talk about politics and only and stick to Catholicism? [00:02:48] Now, first, I understand that Catholics are free to disagree a lot more when it comes to politics, Nate. They are. When it comes to theology, we can't disagree about the Trinity. We can't disagree about the immorality of abortion. We can't disagree about the immaculate conception of Blessed Mother Mary, things like that. [00:03:05] But we can disagree about what the best things we need to do in a political environment. Like so should we raise taxes or cut taxes? Should we implement this law or that law? [00:03:18] How much should we close the border? Should we close it at all? Should we keep it completely open? These are things that are actually open to debate among lay Catholics, among all Catholics. But lay Catholics are primarily the ones who are supposed to be engaged in these debates. And so I get that, that we're not going to agree. [00:03:34] However, I would say that I find that I think too many Catholics, good Catholics, you know, conservative, orthodox, traditional, whatever, Catholics, I do think they put their party politics before their faith sometimes that they are so wrapped up in. [00:03:52] We have to make sure our side wins. We can't do anything that might make the other side look like it's doing something right. [00:04:00] And so they will excuse a multitude of sins on our side, so to speak. Which, by which I mean for a lot of people, that'd be the Republican Party. I'm not a member of the Republican Party, so I don't really consider it my side, or more specifically President Trump that we cannot criticize anything President Trump does because somehow that would allow our enemies, the Bidens, the Harris's and the Democrats of the world to, to rule. [00:04:29] I don't see it like that. [00:04:31] I see it as we use our faith to inform our political views completely. [00:04:35] And if that means that we're not always in lockstep with a certain political party, that's okay. In fact, I kind of feel like that should be the norm for Catholics, that we shouldn't be in lockstep with a specific political party. [00:04:49] Now, in my own opinion, I think it's much we are much closerly closely aligned to the Republican Party in general than the Democratic Party because Democrat Party has gone so far off the reservation of sanity and morality. [00:05:03] But that does not mean that we are should be in lockstep with the Republican Party or with a Republican president, United States. I want to say though, like, this is our live podcast on Tuesday afternoon. So I welcome dissenting views in the live chat. So if you want to disagree with anything I say in this, any takes I give during this podcast, feel free to jump in and let me know. [00:05:26] So first, let's talk about this, the Iran war. The first thing I want to say is can we please stop with the silliness of saying it's not a war, it's not a war, it's just a military action or whatever. This has to be the stupidest part of the debate I hear. I mean, come on, guys, what are we doing here? I mean, this is straight out of Orwell saying it's not a war. We're literally engaged in a significant military operation against another country. We're bombing them like crazy. They are in return attacking us and, or, you know, different and allies of us and things like that. [00:06:06] If it's not that, if it's not war, what the heck is it? And if you use some term like a, you know, directed military action, that's a war, people. [00:06:16] I, I admit that that one's just drives me crazy because it's just so stupid. I mean, it really is. I mean, I see smart people saying this too. I see people who are very smart who are saying it's not a war, it is a war. Of course it's a war. Now, to be honest, it is somewhat irrelevant whether or not we, what we want to call it, because just war theory of the Catholic Church does not apply simply to anything we decide to call a war. [00:06:43] It applies to all military action. [00:06:45] The conditions of just war theory aren't just restricted to something a country calls a war. And the truth is nobody was stupid enough in previous years, in previous decades to say something wasn't a war when it clearly was. It's only in our modern times that we're dumb enough to do that. [00:07:01] But I mean, propaganda is everything and that's really what all that is, is propaganda. Say it's not war, but whether or not it's a war, whatever you want to call it, I don't care. [00:07:10] Ultimately, the same moral principles apply. The same conditions have to be met for any military action, whether or not it's a full scale formal war or not. [00:07:21] So I want to talk about three aspects. [00:07:25] I should say there are three aspects to every war when we're looking at different perspectives, and that is the military, the political, and the moral. [00:07:35] These are three different aspects of a war. The military aspect, the political aspect, and the moral aspect. They are separate, but they are interrelated in many ways. So a war could be militarily successful, but that doesn't make it moral. And it also might not be politically a good idea. [00:07:55] Likewise, you could go into a war and it could be politically disastrous, but it could be moral. [00:08:07] Also. [00:08:08] Military and political success of a war are part of the equation of whether or not it's moral under just war theory, but it's not the entire. It's kind of a minor part of the equation. So they are interrelated. So I want to talk about all three of these aspects today and kind of how does this war meet those, the standards of is it a good idea militarily, is a good idea politically, Is it a good idea morally? [00:08:37] Now, I want to also be clear. I'm talking here from an American's perspective. I am an American. [00:08:43] I'm judging the American case here. [00:08:47] I'm. This is why a lot of people got upset back when Russia declared war and invaded Ukraine that people like me weren't, like, going after Russia for the immorality of what they were doing. [00:09:00] I'm not Russian. [00:09:02] I'm not. That's not my job. If I was Russian, yeah, I should be doing that. [00:09:07] I was just when it came to the Russian Ukraine war, I was just judging the morality of America being involved in that because I'm American. So if you're watching this, listening to, you're not American, I apologize for nothing. But I'm going to give an American perspective here. And so another thing to note is I'm not giving an Israeli perspective. [00:09:28] It might be, for example, hypothetically, it might be immoral for America to be involved in this war, but moral for Israel to be involved in it. That is possible. After all, we're not the same country. Right? [00:09:42] Right. We're not the same country. [00:09:45] And so therefore, I'm just giving the American perspective. So if I argue something about America, you know, something about this being immoral, it's not saying anything about Israel, Israel's involvement in it. [00:09:56] Also, I'm not going to talk about much about Israel's role in this. I do think it's a big deal. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a big deal. I think Israel is very much part of this equation of why we got into this war. And I will briefly touch on it in a few places where it applies. [00:10:11] But that's not the point of this podcast episode, isn't to talk about what I think about the relationship between America and Israel and how interrelated we are and whether or not it's a good thing or bad thing. I've talked about in other podcasts. I've written about it. We've had articles about it at Crisis. So you can go elsewhere for that. So let's break it down. So military first, the military aspect of this war. Is this a good idea militarily? [00:10:40] My answer is I have no idea. [00:10:43] You know what else I think? I doubt you do. Either this is something where whenever a war happens or Any military action, whatever, we all become military experts. You see on X or other places, everybody's like, oh, this is terrible. This is going to mean the defeat of this is going to mean the victory, whatever. You don't know and neither do I. I am not a military expert. I know almost nothing about whether or not this is a, you know, will be a successful campaign as far as executing whatever the plan is, which I'm a little confused about, to be honest. [00:11:12] I do know a few things though. I've been around long enough. I've seen enough military actions by the United States. I do have some thoughts on this. Not from a expertise, military expertise, but just from seeing the past and applying it to today. [00:11:30] I know this. First of all, whenever America attacks somebody, it always looks great at first. I mean, we killed the Ayatollah on the first day. [00:11:39] We also killed over 100 school children, schoolgirls. But you know, let's ignore that for a second. [00:11:46] America, currently modern America is excellent at short term military incursions, massive attacks, shock and all stuff like that. We, we are very, very good at that. Our military, like our special forces and people, I mean, they're the best in the world. [00:12:03] Our intelligence, our ability to kind of infiltrate things like that, we're very, very good at whether or not we're very good at a long term, long drawn out war. I don't know. I've heard people say we're not, that we're not as good at that, but I'm not even going to say that. [00:12:22] The fact is, is that we're very good at. So, so if it looks like on the first few days that the military is very successful in what it's doing, that's to be expected. In fact, if it wasn't the case, wow, we're in big trouble. I mean, America's in big trouble if that's the case. Because ultimately that's what we're very good at. [00:12:42] Also, I want to say that when it comes to knowing what's going on militarily, there's, there is so much misinformation in every war. I mean, just everybody lies. You have to know that everybody lies. You might hate Iran. You might think Iran is this awful Muslim state that just is the worst and they lie all the time. Okay, guess what? So does America. We lie all the time too. [00:13:05] And every country does. It's not like we're worse than other countries at this. But I don't think we're better either. [00:13:11] So I very much hesitate to say, okay, we're the first few days. How many days in Saturday, Sunday, Monday, four days. We're day four into this. Oh, we're doing great or we're doing terrible. I don't know, and I don't think many people know either. [00:13:28] Also, I would say even a quick success, let's say this war wraps up in a week, that we're done. No more military excursion. Maybe, let's say even Iran decides, okay, we're gonna do whatever you want. America. [00:13:42] That doesn't mean necessarily it was a military success long term because there's always ramifications. There's always ramifications. [00:13:50] I mean, it hardens opposition to us in the region. There are 19American military bases in the Middle east right now. It opens them up to future attacks being there, it just makes it more likely that something like this could happen. There's a lot of consequences that can happen long term. So. [00:14:10] And we saw, perfect example, this Mission Accomplished by George W. Bush. [00:14:16] Mission accomplished. What year did he say that? Like 2005 or something like that? I can't remember the exact year, but it was decades ago. We did not accomplish the mission. It was not a military success. What we did in Iraq, yet we were like, mission accomplished. So when the neocons are cheering, we've won, stuff like that, let's just, you know, slow our roll a little bit and know that, you know, it's dumb to act like we've already won. Now. I also want to say it's dumb to act like the American military isn't the greatest and most powerful military in the world. [00:14:49] So I've actually heard people like that, too. I've heard both. I've heard, like the Lindsey Graham's of the world and Ben Shapiro, stuff like, you know, talking like, we're the greatest, we destroyed this, we're so successful, we basically got this thing wrapped up, or we'll wrap it up real quick. [00:15:03] But then I also hear the people are like, oh, it's going terrible. Boy, they're really. [00:15:08] America's really hurting. I mean, come on. I don't think it's either of those two things. I think I do. I do wonder if Trump, and maybe people in the Trump administration thought that after that first day, Iran would come crawling and say, we'll do whatever you want after the Ayatollah Khomeini was killed, they'd just be like, okay, you know, what do you want? And when that didn't happen and we're still going, maybe, I don't know. It's speculation again. I'm not A military expert? I don't know and neither do you. So. So I'm not going to dwell on that much anymore. Okay, now how about the political aspects? This is something like I said, as Catholics, we can disagree on some aspects of it, except for when it touches on morality, not so much. [00:15:53] So what are the political aspects of this? And this isn't the morality of it. Whether or not it's unjust or not, just does this fly? How will this affect internal American politics plus geopolitics? First is, I think it's pretty obvious there isn't strong American support for this action or this war. In fact, I believe I read where this has the lowest support at the beginning of a war, of any war in modern times, which makes sense because literally there was no build up to, to sell it. This is something Trump did that is amazing to me. If you, if you're old enough to remember the Iraq, the second Iraq war, even the first Iraq war, somewhat, but definitely the second. Both of them, there was a buildup, a propaganda buildup of, okay, we have to do this because of this, we have to do this because of this. And people into it, it grew a support. So once we did go to action, once we did actually attack, then there was a groundswell of initial support which weakened in both cases. [00:16:51] Same with the, the war against Afghanistan, things like that. [00:16:56] That's not what Trump did this time. He's just like, I'm just going, I mean, he said he would say things here and there, but he just, he's like, I'm just attacking him. He didn't really try to sell it to the country. [00:17:04] And so the country's not convinced. [00:17:06] I mean, all the polls show that there's very low support for this war, even among Republicans. It's actually lower than you would expect. I think it's less than 50%. [00:17:15] Maybe it's a little bit higher for Republicans. It's definitely only like 30% or something like that of Americans. So. [00:17:21] And there's some other political aspects of this. I mean, Donald Trump was elected as the peace president. There's a saying that goes, the American people always elect the peace candidate, but they always John McCain. [00:17:36] And that's very true. George W. Bush, he ran as a compatible servant who wouldn't do nation building in 2000, and he won. Then in 2008, Barack Obama ran as the man who would stop Bush's nation building. And he won and he did. And he, you know, he was John McCain, foreign policy as well. Then Trump ran in 2016 as the president over Hillary Clinton. He won 2020. We'll just kind of skip 2020 because it's weird. [00:18:03] 2024, same thing. [00:18:05] Clearly, Trump was a candidate who was more aligned with a less interventionalist foreign policy. Now, to be clear, Donald Trump is not a non interventionalist. He's not Ron Paul. [00:18:17] Nobody thinks he is. However, he clearly included non interventionalists. The Ron Paul types into his coalition, his MAGA coalition. [00:18:27] You cannot deny that, that he made that part of his campaign. [00:18:32] And in fact, politically, at least one. One of the things he's most famous for was how he smacked down the neocons like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in 2016 and said how stupid the Iraq War was. [00:18:46] He was the one who dropped the bomb in the Republican Party. Until then, no Republican was willing to stand up against that, and he did. And he should be commended for that because he broke some of the neocon stranglehold on the party back in 2016. [00:19:03] But now what do we have? I mean, there's no question Donald Trump is no different than Lindsey Graham when it comes to foreign policy. He is. No, it's not that he's not Ron Paul. We knew that. It's that he's Lindsey Graham. [00:19:18] I mean, he is 100% neocon, 100% aggressive foreign policy interventionalist. I mean, it's incredibly amazing the turn this has taken, how Donald Trump is really not the person he campaigned as. And I'll talk about that more in a second. [00:19:40] One thing I want to also bring up, does everybody remember the debate about a year ago about ORDO Amoris that J.D. vance brought up, where he said that, you know, he's talking about the order of love, basically saying that there's an order of who we care for. My responsibilities are first and foremost to my family, to my community, to my general region, my country, and then only then, and only then outside the country. And this was said in the context of migration, immigrate, immigration debate. He saw lots of liberals who were attacking him, liberal Catholics attacking him, saying, oh, no, you know, you got anybody's your neighbor, Good Samaritan. [00:20:23] But he was right. J.D. vance was right. But why aren't we applying this to our foreign policy if JD Vance applies it to our immigration? In other words, we shouldn't care as much about some migrant from some South American countries. We do about our neighbor. [00:20:41] Well, then why should we care about an Israeli more than our neighbor or an Iranian for that matter? [00:20:51] Why are they all of a sudden put up as one of the most important things we need to defend. [00:20:56] Where's this Ordo amoris now? [00:21:01] It just makes no sense to me that all of a sudden these foreign countries are far more important to us than just taking care of business at home. [00:21:12] It definitely violates this idea of ordo amoris. [00:21:16] Also, I just want to say that the justifications given for this attack, I mean, I would say they're weak, but it's hard to say what they even are, because Trump's all over the map on this one. [00:21:29] I mean, he said after the last summer when we. When we bombed Iran, he said we obliterated their nuclear program. I mean, that's his words. I'm not. I'm paraphrasing, but he said we took care of that. [00:21:42] So clearly that can't be the justification now for going in there and attacking. There was no nuclear threat because we eliminated it last summer. Right. That's what we were told by Donald Trump. [00:21:55] I know that neocons have been saying for 40 years that Iran is just about to fill in the blank. They're just about to bomb Israel. They're just about to attack American forces. They're just about to nuke us. They're just about to. I mean, this has been said for 40 some years. [00:22:17] What changed in the last week or two or whatever then that hasn't been true over the last 47 years. [00:22:24] Because actually, shouldn't it be better now than it was, let's say, a year ago, before we obliterated their nuclear program? [00:22:32] Clearly, they didn't have the ability to nuke anybody. And. And so if you say, well, they're just about to attack, so. And so. Well, they didn't. [00:22:42] And yes, I do think you have to wait. [00:22:46] People are like, oh, you're gonna wait until they kill you? Well, if you want. I mean, if I'm walking down the street and I see somebody who gives me a mean look and I shoot him, first of all I did was, you know, illegal, but also, it's horrifically immoral. [00:23:04] I do have to wait until he actually attacks me, until I fight back. Now, his attack might be charging me or something like that, but Iraq, Iran was not doing that. [00:23:16] I mean, Rubio even admitted there was no immediate threat. [00:23:20] Rubio said this. This Rubio, sometimes he gives great quotes because he says what actually is true. But it's really stupid to say, to admit Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, yesterday said, we knew there was going to be an Israeli action and that that would precipitate an attack on American forces. [00:23:40] And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go before they launched those attacks. We would suffer higher casualties. So in other words, our ally Israel was about to attack Iran, and we knew that if they did that Iran would then attack American forces, so we had to attack them first. [00:23:59] How can anybody think that's logical? How can anybody think that makes sense and moral in any way? It just is unbelievably stupid. [00:24:08] So we just, basically, to me, that seems like. [00:24:11] I'm not going to dwell on this, like I said, the whole relationship with Israel, because that's a whole nother can of worms. [00:24:17] But it does seem like we're completely beholden to Israel. Whatever they say, whatever they do, we just have to follow along. [00:24:24] And also, even if that was kind of true, that's not, that's not how it works. [00:24:30] The idea that we have to kill as many of their people as we can because otherwise we might suffer higher casualties. Well, the fact is he's talking about our military or 19 military bases in the, in the region. [00:24:43] Why are we even there? [00:24:45] I would even argue that we shouldn't even have bases. Military bases in the Middle East. [00:24:51] And the fact is, by having them there, yes, we are putting them at risk. [00:24:55] They're our military, after all. And so, yes, they might get attacked by Iran. And you know what happens if they do attack? If they, if they unprovoked and just attacked our military bases? Yeah, we, we hit back. Yes. And then I'm, I'm going to be the one saying, yeah, that's a moral action now. It has to be proportional and things like that. But the point is, if all of a sudden Israel didn't attack, we didn't attack, and Iran just this week had decided we're going to attack an American military base in the region, they're going to bomb it, I say, yep, go after them. [00:25:28] Guess what? They weren't going to do that. They weren't going to do that. I mean, Rubio admitted it by saying they would only do that if Israel first attacked them, which, honestly, if Israel first attacked them, I can understand why they would attack back. [00:25:41] So another point that I just want to make when it comes to the political ramifications of this is this is clearly unconstitutional. Now, I know first of all, I know nobody cares. [00:25:53] I know almost nobody cares whenever somebody brings up like a Rand Paul or Thomas Massey brings up being unconstitutional. I know the vast majority of people say, what are you, a, like a constitutional scholar? You a professor who cares about stuff like that? I do care, but I know most people Don't I also know about the War powers Resolution of 1973, which basically states that the executive branch can like attack another country and within 48 hours they have to inform Congress. [00:26:19] And then they can only do this for about up to 60 days, I think it is, before Congress has to approve it. [00:26:26] I honestly think that's kind of basically that's been abused. That's being abused left and right. Because clearly the intention of our founding fathers in writing a Constitution was that Congress would have authority to declare war, which means Congress would have authority in general to initiate military actions. [00:26:50] Yes, the President's commander in chief. [00:26:53] However, there's a balance of powers here that's put there on purpose. We don't want a dictator, a military dictator who just decides willy nilly what he's going to do with the military. There's a reason it's the Congress, because in the Congress, the people are at least in theory, better represented. There's going to be more debate. Things won't be as quickly emotional to decide. Let's do this. [00:27:16] Because the truth is, if, let's say again, let's say Iran attacked a military, American military base just out of the blue before all this happened, I guarantee you if you took it to Congress, you would get a majority support for a military action response and it would happen quick, it would happen that day. So it's not like you have some military reason like, oh my gosh, if we don't decide this within three seconds, the whole, the whole conflict is over, we're going to lose. No, Congress would decide very quickly in that situation. [00:27:46] But the fact is, is that Congress isn't even consulted anymore. I mean, they said, oh, we told the Gang of Eight, whatever. [00:27:53] I mean, the fact is, is that Trump just did this unilaterally and that is not the way our founding fathers wanted it. And there's a reason for that. Like I said, this is frankly a dictatorial type action. And also remember, for all the Trump fans out there who are defending him on this, this is just press further precedent for the next president who might be a Democrat, to do something very similar that you're not going to like, okay, I won't beat that horse because I just know people don't care. [00:28:27] Another thing I want to mention about the whole political aspect of this, and that is regime change. [00:28:34] Remember that Donald Trump has said over and over and over again, I actually heard a montage of all a bunch of times he said this, that he is not interested in regime change. He's not interested in a War of regime change of another country. He has said it, he has insisted upon it, he has campaigned on it, that he's against regime change wars. He said it over and over and over again. Even last summer's attack on Iran. He specifically said, this is not. He, he did not want regime change. He just was shutting down the nuclear program. [00:29:07] Everybody's like, see, it's not regime change. [00:29:12] And yet this time he literally says it's regime change. [00:29:16] I mean, I do. You gotta love Trump in that he at least just comes out and says it. He doesn't try to act like it's not regime change this time. He knows it is and so he says it. [00:29:26] So either one of two things is true. Either Donald Trump has been lying for years and he's always been for regime change and you know, wars. And he just said that to get elected, to build his coalition, to get the Ron Paul types to get on board and vote for him. Okay, that's one possibility. [00:29:44] Another possibility is he actually believes he actually is opposed to regime change wars, but he's controlled, but that he and he does not have the power and the authority we think he might have that people, you can fill in the blank of who you want to be. You can make it, you know, Israel, you can make it the military industrial complex, you can make it the neocons. I don't care who you make it. You can make it somebody who's got a video on him doing something terrible. I don't know. I'm just saying though, if he believed, he really believed everything he's been saying for years against regime change wars and now all of a sudden he's doing one. [00:30:23] It's very possible he's basically not in control. Like he's being told what to do on some level. Not saying he's a 100 puppet, but somehow the same thing is true about forever wars. [00:30:35] Every time people like me talk about the, for, you know, we don't want to get in forever wars, the neocons will be like, oh, you guys are just the panic ons. You just want to. [00:30:45] You're always saying things are the worse than they are, you know, forever worse. Stuff like that. That's just not going to happen. [00:30:51] Well, Trump literally said it again. You gotta love Trump. He says wars can be fought forever. He put that in quotes and very successfully just using these supplies, meaning which are better than other countries finest arms. Meaning America has the ability to fight a forever war. [00:31:07] So I mean he literally is quoting us, the critics who say we don't want Regime change wars, we don't want forever wars. Things he said in the past and now he's like, yeah, we're going to have. We. I don't care if we have a forever war, that's a regime change war, let's do it. [00:31:23] And so politically this is just, this is just awful. [00:31:29] I don't know how, I mean, honestly, I think it's possible that Trump doesn't care about the political ramifications, but I gotta imagine Vance and Rubio and some others do. [00:31:40] I mean, this is just torn about, torn apart the MAGA coalition. I mean, there's no question the 2024 MAGA coalition is in tatters. [00:31:50] It's been fraying for a while now, but it's in tatters. I mean, I have heard people who are, who voted for Trump and supported him and basically, you know, support him on public platforms are now like, forget him. They might say a little bit more earthy, but you know what I mean? [00:32:06] And they're completely against him and they want the Democrats even to win in 2026 to send a message to Republicans. These are people who voted for Trump and supported him loudly. [00:32:19] I mean, the only people left are the hardcore, are the neocons, obviously, and the hardcore Trump bites. The ones who are like Trump can do no wrong. They're the only people left in the MAGA coalition. [00:32:28] Now I'm not saying that's permanent, that could these things change. It could change by the, by the November elections. I mean, if we have a true looking success in Iran, it could var. And, and oil prices go down. All this stuff happens. Maybe they get a, a leader, a new leader that somehow is pro American. Something like that happens within the next month or two and there's not a lot of American casualties. Yeah, it could turn around, but for right now, there's no question this is just awful for the MAGA coalition. [00:33:01] Another thing I want to note is the geopolitical consequences of this. It's not just, you know, American political consequences, but the fact is a quick victory isn't necessarily a long term victory. [00:33:13] Here's the thing. [00:33:14] People might not want to hear this, but the ayatollah that we just killed, he was the moderate in the room. [00:33:20] I know. I'm saying I'm doing this by Iranian standards, not American standards, but the fact is, just because you kill one guy doesn't mean the next guy's going to be better. We've seen this time and time again. [00:33:32] This is one of the reasons why when they were talking about trying to assassinate Putin I was like, that's insane. [00:33:36] There's worse people in Russia than Putin. And if you kill Putin, you assassinate him, those worst people will take over. And so it's very possible that's what's going to happen here in Iran. It's actually be worse. [00:33:49] The Ayatollah was actually one of the ones who was less, you know, kind of holding back getting nuclear weapons for Iran. And that might not be the case the next guy. And the fact is, you know, there's other geopolitical ramifications. It's very likely, very possible, I should say, that both China and Russia will move in to support Iran just simply to weaken America, to prolong the war. The longer the war goes on, the worse it is for America. I think that should be obvious. [00:34:19] We don't want to be stuck in a quagmire that lasts forever. We might not. Like I said, this war could be over by the end of this week, but it could last months, years. [00:34:29] I don't think it's going to last years because I think Trump at some point would just be like, I'm calling this off and calling victory no matter what. I don't think Trump's that dumb. [00:34:36] The fact is though, China and Russia could use this to weaken us. [00:34:40] And also just look at the long term consequences of our interventionalism, our interventions in the Middle east in the past. [00:34:47] Bin Laden, he basically, he said the reason for 9, 11 for everything he did was because of the first Iraq war and the military bases that we set up over there. [00:35:01] He just didn't like, he didn't want America coming over and, you know, killing Muslims and doing what he can. I'm not blaming America for 9, 11, but I am saying there are consequences to our actions, long term consequences. Something I really feel like the neocons miss out so often. [00:35:17] They don't recognize so we might have a great victory. And we're all cheering the Ben Shapiro's like, you know, ecstatic because, and Mark Levine and people, Lindsey Graham, you know, all that, they might be just going crazy how, how great we are. [00:35:32] That doesn't mean, though, we won. [00:35:34] I mean, Pat Buchanan said it very well that every time we kill, you know, or Israel, whoever kills some young girl in the Middle east, her brothers, her cousins and her uncles all decide we're going to go to war against America. [00:35:49] I mean, that that's just, that's the way it is. [00:35:51] We can't act like there's any such thing as a clean war, as a clean military action where we just go in take care of business and we go out. It just. It's not possible. [00:36:00] So there are many massive geopolitical consequences. [00:36:04] Okay. Boy, this is a long podcast, and if you're still with me, I appreciate it, but I do think this is a very important topic, so I'm just going to go along this time. Now, what I want to do is I want to talk about the moral aspects. Why I'm very strongly convinced that this is an unjust war, I. E. It violates Catholic just war theory. Now, before I go into that, I want to just make it very clear I'm not defending Iran. This is something that you see the midwits online talk about. If you say anything like this unjust war, it's like, oh, you're defending this terrible regime, you know, Islamic regime in Iran and stuff like that. No, lots of evil countries exist in the world and they do lots of evil things. [00:36:43] That does not justify us bombing them. [00:36:46] I mean, I just saw where. Oh, what country? Some country in Uganda. I think it was in Africa. I think it was Uganda. They, like, had killed a bunch of their citizens this week or something like that. Should we bomb them? [00:36:57] If you think we should. You have a different idea of morality than I do. [00:37:03] So I'm not saying Iran isn't a bad country. In fact, I just want to make it clear. I want Iran to convert to Catholicism. Islam is an evil religion. I want it to no longer exist. I don't want to kill all Muslims, though. I want them to convert to Jesus Christ and become members of the Catholic Church. [00:37:22] But just because they're an evil country or do evil things, whatever you want to call it, I don't know what is an evil country. I'll be honest, I'm not quite so sure. Because America does evil things. I wouldn't call us an evil country. [00:37:33] The UK does evil things. I would call them an evil country. [00:37:36] I mean, Iran does evil things. I call them an evil country. Maybe. I don't know. [00:37:41] The point is, a just war isn't just, we don't like them, so we're going to bomb them. We don't like what they do, so we'll just bomb. That's not what it is. [00:37:50] Now, a lot of the assessment of a just war is problematic in that you're deciding who you believe when it comes to a lot of information and actions that are being taken. [00:38:04] I don't believe Iran, but here's the thing. I don't believe American government either. [00:38:10] So the propaganda the American government spews out, I don't believe any more than the propaganda that Iran spews out. I just, and I say this from history. I used to believe American propaganda, but I've been around long enough that I don't believe it. This is one of the things I'm always encouraged about with young people. [00:38:25] They didn't, they're not like me and like people my age who started out believing American propaganda until finally we were disillusioned by reality. [00:38:34] Young people, they started off. I know it's not good to be too cynical. I'm not saying that. But at least they know not to believe America propaganda. [00:38:43] So if you think, though, that everything Iran says is a lie and everything America says is true, well, we can't really have a discussion. I mean, you're going to think this is a just war because America says it is. I mean, it's not really a debate. Then we have to sift through the information. [00:39:02] We have to look at the past and how the government has lied to us in the past and how it will and continues to lie to us. And so I think that's, that's, that is a challenge. And I'm not going to say it's not. [00:39:14] And the fact is, is, like, I don't even know when to believe Trump because he contradicts himself so much. I mean, like I said about the regime change and all that stuff. So, like, I'm not even saying he's lying. I'm not saying, like, I don't even know what to believe with him. But to blindly believe the US Government at this point, I think is insanity. [00:39:30] I mean, just to blindly believe the US Government, I think is insanity. So let's go into the just war real quick. I want to pull up the four criteria. These are the four conditions of a just war according to the catechism, the Catholic Church, which really what it's doing is it's condensing and bringing together the centuries over almost 2000 years of debate on what makes a war, just going to war just or military action, whatever. [00:39:55] The first is the damage inflicted by the aggressor or the nation on the nation or community. Nations must be lasting, grave and certain. So this is the first one. [00:40:06] Okay, so we agree that Iran has done bad things. [00:40:10] But how, and I'm going to ask this how? Have they really harmed us? [00:40:14] Have they really inflicted lasting, grave and certain damage on America? [00:40:21] I honestly don't know how you can say they have. [00:40:25] I don't know how you can say they have. [00:40:29] They have not bombed America. They haven't Even bought. I mean they haven't really attacked. They haven't attacked American bases. I know they've sponsored, you know, the claim is they've sponsors terrorism. I don't, I'm not denying that they have. [00:40:41] But I think it's very hard to say that Iran has done last engrave and certain damage on America or even the community of nations for that matter. [00:40:52] Remember, future potential threats do not count because you can make those up like Benjamin Netanyahu has been doing for 20 plus years. [00:41:01] You can make up future things. [00:41:03] It's saying the damage inflicted, that's in past tense has already been inflicted. Not. Okay, we think it might be inflicted now. Iran might be a real threat to Israel, but it's not to us. It's not our war. We have to remember the lessons of World War I in which alliances and treaties led a small localized conflict into the worst war that humanity had ever seen up to that point. [00:41:30] Okay, so that's the first one. The damage inflicted by the aggressor island nation. I don't think that's that. [00:41:36] I don't think you can, I don't know how you can say that that applies here. [00:41:39] Okay. Two, all other means of putting an end to the war, the conflict must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. [00:41:48] Again, I don't think this one applies either because we were having negotiations with them. We've done this a couple times where we have negotiations with somebody and then we just decide to attack them. [00:41:59] And that really is going to hurt us, you know, long term geopolitically. But the point is there are art all there, there are alternatives to what we did. [00:42:11] One is we could leave the Middle East. You know, we don't have to be there. [00:42:16] It's not, you can't convince me that it's absolutely necessary. We have 19 bases in the Middle East. But even not even saying that, honestly I haven't heard government why we couldn't keep the status quo. Why did we have to attack them? [00:42:30] Because of a potential threat that never has that we've been told is potentially about to happen for 40 plus years and hasn't Ronald Reagan didn't think it was, you know, okay, we have to attack him. George W. Bush didn't, Clinton didn't, Bush didn't, Obama didn't. The first, Trump didn't, Biden didn't. Nobody thought we had to attack them yet we've been told the exact same line for 40 plus years. [00:42:58] Okay, so. And there's other alternatives as well, which I won't Go into here. Okay, the third condition of a just war, there must be a serious prospect, there must be serious prospects of success. Now this one may be true, like American military is very powerful. [00:43:12] We might be able to achieve success. The only thing I would say, so I'm willing to concede this one by the way. The only thing I would say though is what do we mean by success? I've already mentioned you could have a short term military success and a long term disaster, which is what happened in multiple excursions of America in various places over the past 20 some years. [00:43:36] So, and also I would also say everything looks like success at first, but then ends up not being. At the first few days of the war in Afghanistan, everything looked rosy and we were there for 20 plus years and nothing happened. [00:43:49] Everybody was cheering. When we first started the second Iraq war, it's going to be over soon and we're still there. Really, that was a disaster. So let's not be too quick to say there'll be success. Maybe there will. I actually just be clear. [00:44:05] I pray the war ends very soon. I don't want innocent lives being killed. I don't want anybody being killed. I pray it will end soon. I'm just saying, even if we want to grant this one, success is difficult sometimes to define. [00:44:18] And now the fourth condition of a just war is 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. [00:44:34] Honestly, I feel like nobody ever considers this one. This is the one that's always ignored. And this is the one that the neocons in particular always ignore because they, they, they, they put it into a box of okay, we will go there, we will change the regime, it will be a regime that likes us. And now everything solves. We leave, everything's taken care of. They do not consider blowback, you know, the famous 2000 during the 2008 campaign of Rudy Giuliani and, and, and Ron Paul, where Ron Paul was talking about blowback and he put Rudy Giuliani his place. [00:45:07] The fact is, is that these wars, these excursions were creating a world that hates us. [00:45:14] Now I'm not one of these Americans who cares about what some European intellectual, you know, pointy head elite thinks about us. At the same time, I recognize a world that hates us is not good. [00:45:26] A world that hates us is not good for America. [00:45:29] Because what it does, it drives people into the arms of Russia, into China, it drives China and Russia together, which is exactly what's been happening over the past few years. [00:45:40] Further, nobody's going to trust us in negotiations anymore because of what Trump's doing. [00:45:45] There is serious consequences to what happens, even if we have a quick military success and a new regime comes in that's pro America. [00:45:53] The fact is, is that there are many evils and disorders that are happening now. Are they graver than the status quo of Iran be being this nebulous threat that does sponsor terrorism but doesn't actually attack us directly or anything like that? I, I think that's for each person to judge. I think I'm giving that, that is a prudential type of thing. But to me, looking at the history of what's happened over the past 20 some years and even further back with these excursions, especially in the Middle East, Afghanistan, places like that, to me it seems clear that the evils it produces, graver evils. [00:46:30] I mean, the reason we're still over there and this is happening is often because we just, we keep doing things like this. Also, it's a grave evil that's going to cause future American presidents to use our military forces unconstitutionally and they could do something even dumber than what Trump's doing when it comes. So to me, it's very clear that this is an unjust war. It does not satisfy the four. And by the way, to be just as to satisfy all four conditions, not just one of them, but all four, it clearly doesn't satisfy at least two of the four and probably I'd say three of the four, maybe even all four. [00:47:07] Excuse me. [00:47:09] As Catholics, we have to judge wars objectively, not with a nationalistic spirit. It's very easy to get caught up in a nationalistic spirit of our country is right and everybody else is wrong. And if our president says we have to do this, we have to do it. [00:47:24] That's not true patriotism. True patriotism is wanting the best, wanting the good for your country. [00:47:29] And doing something immoral is not for the good of our country. [00:47:33] And so I, I just. It's an unjust war that I think American Catholics should not support. [00:47:39] We have to be just a couple final thoughts before we get to the live chat. [00:47:45] As Catholics, I really do think we have to be radically committed to peace. I'm not saying we have to be pacifist, not saying we have to be peaceniks or something like that. But the fact is modern warfare is so awful, so horrific that we really need to pause before we jump into, oh, let's go to war with somebody. Let's do this, Everybody gets emotionally riled up during these times. I know this. [00:48:05] And it's very difficult during that wave of emotion to kind of be able to sit back and be objective and say, wait a second, is this really something that is objectively moral or not? Because we get caught up in the, in, in the height of the emotion of our, you know, war and our country and the military and all that stuff. [00:48:26] But the fact is we need to look at objectively, and objectively it's clear that this war is both unjust and unconstitutional, and we should oppose it. [00:48:35] And so we need to pray and fast. I always say this. I'm going to say it every time. We need to pray and fast for peace. We need to pray and fast for peace. [00:48:42] And also we need to ask Blessed Carl, the Emperor of Peace, he's nicknamed the Peace Emperor. We need to ask for his intercession, beg him for his intercession. If you're in Dallas, like I said on Saturday, come, come to our, our symposium and we'll. We'll talk about that some more. But really praying fast. I think all of us, no matter whether whether or not we think this is a just war or not, hopefully we all agree that we need to pray and fast for a swift and speedy conclusion, a just conclusion. We asked the Blessed. We asked Blessed Carl intercede for us. Okay, let's look at this. [00:49:13] Michael Petek says, how can a war against an Islamic state and perpetual jihad against the rest of the world be unjust? Well, I hope I explained it well. I hope I explained it well in his. [00:49:22] Because the fact is, is that we need to. We need to look at it as, what has the country of Iran done to America? And has it risen to the fact to the point of we need to bomb them? And I would say no, when you say they're in perpetual jihad against the rest of the world, what do you mean by that? Have Iranian forces attacked American forces? Have they gone to war with us? Have they bombed our bases or anything like that? Have they supported terrorism? That's the claim. And I don't think it's actually as clear cut as people think it is that they're like, every terrorist attack is somehow blamed on Iran because we know there's been cases where that's happened. It hasn't been true. [00:49:59] So, yes, a war against an Islamic state can be. [00:50:04] Can be unjust. Absolutely. [00:50:07] Okay, August TV 1, 2, 3 says, I hope you have time to discuss how crazy and evil it is that some of our troops were supposedly briefed. They're fighting a holy war to hasten the return of Christ. Oh, I didn't even bring that up. That, that's awful. [00:50:19] That's awful. Yeah. [00:50:21] Do not discount the fact that there are people in high places in our government, not the president. [00:50:27] And I don't think J.D. vance, and hopefully not Rubio, may. Rubio, who really do believe the heretical beliefs of many evangelical Protestants that this could bring about the coming of Christ. [00:50:41] I mean, as a Catholic, we have to just shudder and say, this is where heresy gets you. And it's awful. [00:50:48] PhoenixXP says in his interview with Tapper, Trump said Iran's retaliatory bombing surprised us. Yeah, I didn't want to talk too much about this, but it does seem like there wasn't a lot of planning about what to do after the first day, and they weren't real. And they kind of went this a little bit blind. I don't know. I hope that's not true. [00:51:10] Cigar mode for good says, what is the thing that will cause people to say this is a win or loss? That's a great question. It's a great question. I don't even when you, when you hear interviews with Rubio or Lindsey Graham or Trump wherever, interview, not really clear what the objective is, what the final objective is. Okay, regime change, but what regime replacing it would be, would be considered acceptable. And at what point do you stop and, I mean, I don't know what a win or a loss is. I think that's a good question, and I think that's part of the equation of why it's immoral, to be honest. [00:51:42] Kerry says Seth Dillon summarized takes like yours as, quote, something good happened that benefited the United States and the rest of the world, but the rest rule includes Israel. That makes me angry. [00:51:52] Okay. I don't really know how to respond to Seth Dillon. He's not exactly a serious person. But, you know, okay, I, honestly, I'm not even trying to be dismissive of you, Carrie. [00:52:03] I, I, I think I explained it in his podcast. What I mean, and somebody like Seth Dillon probably doesn't care. So August TV also says there's something wrong with the system when Trump can wage global war unchecked but can't deport that Maryland man gangbanger without a rogue judge tossing it. Yeah, I mean, things are crazy. I mean, I don't, There is something crazy about that, that Trump is incredibly constrained in some ways and what he can do, but he's completely free to do other things that are a lot worse. I mean, I'm not saying Maryland man shouldn't have been deported. But clearly Maryland man being deported isn't as big a deal as completely bombing a another nation. [00:52:44] But yet that's where we are. [00:52:47] Spectrum Maxing says every day the Weimar Republic and fall of Roman Empire comparisons become more and more clear. I like, I'm glad you brought that up because I'm actually reading a history of ancient Rome and one of the things that came up recently I was reading about was how Cicero, this was before the empire even started, was basically drumming up support for military action against Persia, against modern day Iran. [00:53:12] And it was clear he was making stuff up and others were making stuff up. They were like basically saying, trying to get support in the Senate and stuff for this action. I apologize, I don't remember the details of it, but basically I just remember thinking like, oh my gosh, the more things change, more they say the same. I mean there's a lot of comparisons here and really a lot of that just has to do with the fact that we're, you know, we're all affected by original sin. It's not like we're unique in, in some way. How to Be Catholic says it's sad that no one cares about the constitutionality of this action. Yeah, I think it's sad too. I've kind of given up on battle, to be honest. I mean, I, I, I, maybe I shouldn't that I've realized whenever you bring up, I don't think this is constitutional, nobody cares. And so I've just kind of given up on, on trying to, to, to fight that battle. But ultimately I do think it matters, I think more importantly more than the Constitution is Catholic morality, of course. [00:54:03] And so I would say it's unjust just by Catholic morality. It could be constitutional and be unjust, just to be clear and it could be unconstitutional and could be just in some way. But this one I think fails both tests, both, it's both unjust and unconstitutional. So. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I appreciate everybody coming on. I appreciate the, the live chat. It looks like it was pretty lively going on and, and everybody's thoughts and like I said, praying fast for peace and ask the blessed call to intercede for us. Until next time, everybody. God love you and remember the poor.