“This cannot continue”

We are now in uncharted territory. The American airstrikes against strategic nuclear installations in Iran represent a fundamental change in U.S. policy and may well lead to a wider conflict that could spiral out of control. The risks are huge, but the danger was clear. President Trump acted decisively, and American forces did what they alone could do. Powerful (and stealthy) B-2 bombers dropped as many as 15 massive GBU-57 or “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” bombs on Iran’s key nuclear installations in Fordo and Natanz and other ordnance hit the key facility at Isfahan, where Iran is believed to store nuclear materials for bomb-making. President Trump declared the mission to be a success, even as he challenged Iran openly and warned the Islamic regime not to attack U.S. forces. Speaking of Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, the president said “this cannot continue.” The president made clear that the United States was prepared to respond to any Iranian attack: “Remember, there are many targets left.”

It will take some time for the impact and results of the U.S. attack to be fully known. President Trump told the American people that the attacks had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. A Pentagon official later quietly acknowledged that “obliterated” is not a military term. By Sunday night, Washington time, it was becoming clear that the U.S. attack had caused significant damage, but a full analysis of the attack and military results is impossible at this point.

Huge questions loom as the nation starts a new week with a new world reality. The United States and Iran have been adversaries for decades, and the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the savage reign of the ayatollahs featured “death to Israel” as a central message and declarations that the United States was the “Great Satan.” The two nations have been close to war before, but for the most part both countries avoided direct military action. Those days are over. The United States now not only sides with Israel—it has joined the military action against Iran. Last night, President Trump spoke openly about the possibility of regime change in Iran, even as the Iran’s “supreme leader” since 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, released a list of chosen successors in the event he is killed.

There are huge moral, political, and even theological dimensions to these developments. It has been just over a week since Israel began its direct action against Iran. The Israeli effort was stunningly successful, eliminating much of Iran’s senior military leadership. One officer admitted, “Our senior officers were all assassinated within one hour.” Once again, Israel had stunned the world. It is now known that Israel Defense Forces and intelligence agents had placed weapons and drones well within Iran, weeks ahead of the attack. A senior Iranian cleric said, “It is clear that we had a massive security and intelligence breech; there is no denying this.”

What Israel could not do is to penetrate into Iran’s Fordo facility, buried deep within a mountain. The giant “bunker buster” bombs, possessed only by the United States and delivered only by massive American bombers, remain the only adequate ordnance when it comes to conventional weapons. We can only hope the bombs did their work well.

What are we to make of all this? There are several pressing questions.

First, did President Trump act within constitutional authority in ordering the strikes? The answer to that is almost certainly yes, for the Constitution explicitly authorizes the president to act as commander in chief, precisely because Congress cannot act immediately, but a president can. Furthermore, Congress has abdicated much of its authority to declare war. Congress could reassert itself on this question, but there is little evidence that our representatives and senators have any real intention of taking much responsibility for actions like this. Congress can use its power of the purse, but actions like this fall to the commander in chief. Criticism of the president is predictable, but talk is cheap.

Second, was the attack justified? By almost any measure, the attack was justified by the clear and present danger represented by Iran’s rogue nuclear program. Frankly, the entire civilized world counted on the United States to act, even as our timid allies will reserve the right to claim some detachment. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the American action a “dangerous escalation” and said: “There is no military solution. The only path forward is diplomacy. The only hope is peace.” That statement simply reveals the decomposition of the UN as a meaningful force in world affairs. The UN used to be all bark and no bite. Nowadays, it doesn’t even bark.

Third, was the attack just? Christian reasoning, based in historic Just War Theory, requires that certain facts and conditions be satisfied. The military action must be defensive rather than offensive. The action must be lawfully authorized. The action must be proportionate to the threat. The attack must be directed to military targets and not civilians, must be an action of last resort, and must seek to achieve a stable peace. The U.S. action meets all of those criteria. At the end of May, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had processed over 900 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%. A useable nuclear weapon requires uranium processed to 90%. As David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security explained to the Wall Street Journal, that meant that Iran could “make enough weapon-grade uranium for 11 nuclear weapons within a month.” While the world talked, Israel had the courage to act. Now, the United States has acted, too.

Where will this end? We honestly do not know. Was the attack the right action to take? Time will tell. Will this lead to a wider war in the region? We hope not, but only the Iranians can answer that question—and they will. The politics of this unfolding crisis will have to wait. For now, the United States and Israel have acted, thus far alone. We must pray that this justified military action will lead to verified success. Right now, that’s the most pressing issue.