A pause for peace?

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NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 24th of June.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

First up on The World and Everything in It, the United States hits Iran.

Israeli airstrikes on targets in Iran continued Monday, days after the U.S. struck three of Iran’s nuclear facilities with “bunker busters.”

EICHER: We talked about the strike and its aftermath with retired Marine Corps. Colonel Darren Duke. He served three years as the Marines’ attache to Israel starting in 2006. We began by asking the colonel what he thinks the US airstrikes accomplished.

DARREN DUKE: Well, what we know is it was a demonstration of a highly coordinated Joint Force capability to project power in extreme distance from the United States homeland into the heart of Iran and to deliver advanced ordinance on the Fordow facility, as well as Natanz and Isfahan facility. What we don't know at this point is what the exact battle damage assessment is and what the long term effects will be on the Iranian nuclear program as a result of that strike.

EICHER: After we spoke with Colonel Duke, there were some signs of de-escalation. President Trump had announced a ceasefire. Vice President Vance calling the war, his words, “effectively over” … adding there’s an opening now for diplomacy. That said, the announcement was only hours after Iran targeted the U.S. air base in Qatar. That appeared to be retaliation but may have been more measured … with advance notice evidently given and most of the missiles intercepted. So we went back to Colonel Duke and asked: What does all that say about Iran’s strategy?

DUKE: Well, it's clear from the developments on Monday that Iran had run out of escalatory options. They were becoming very scarce. They could have closed the Straits of Hormuz or threatened to do so, but that would have hurt them more than it would have hurt the region or the United States or Israel. They could have turned to terrorism, but that would have hurt their cause since they had claimed from the beginning that they were the victims of aggression and not aggressors. 

And they had no allies coming to their help. So this creative solution emerges to save face late in the day. They could attack Qatar, where U.S. forces are headquartered for that region, and then declare the virtue of their cause, knowing that the air defenses would likely be effective in preventing massive damage. And the Al Udeid air base is removed from Doha itself, the capital of Qatar. Qatar issues a rapid message after that attack saying that they condemn the attack, but that they were successful in defending their airspace and saying that they've always been trying to be a element of stability in the region. 

And then of course, Iran comes out right after that and says, we had no intention of striking the Qatari people. We were only aiming at the Americans. And then a few hours later, it's followed by the president's announcement of a ceasefire. So this all has the marks of a set of actions occurring feverishly behind the scenes to find a diplomatic solution and a way out of the conflict.

MAST With that in mind, then, we asked whether Vice President Vance might be right that this is a genuine opening for diplomacy … or might it just simply be a pause in the conflict?

DUKE: I think as we've all felt from the beginning, this conflict needed to find its way back to the negotiating table. And this was the way that the powers found to get back to the negotiating table. For U.S. to achieve its policy goal of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, for Israel to restore its deterrent in the region, and for the Iranian regime to escape further assault that would only have served to erode its control internally over the country itself. 

And so now I think it's time to look for positive opportunities for stability and peace that might present themselves as the negotiations go forward. Perhaps this opens the way for an end to the fighting in Gaza and the returning of the Israeli hostages. It lets perhaps Lebanon settle down as the pressure from Iran for Hezbollah to act is lessened. 

Yemen, of course, remains a question mark in the region. The Houthis are still in control there have no real pressure to end their actions in the Red Sea. However, perhaps this will moderate somewhat Iran's support and pressure on the Houthis to come to their aid. So yes, I think you're seeing the end of at least this chapter of the conflict and hopefully a return to quiet for all of the non-combatants in the region that were exposed to the warfare of the last 12 days.

MAST: On Sunday I was at the FIFA Club World Cup game in Atlanta…and I saw event security stricter than I’ve encountered before at the stadium. I asked Colonel Duke about what else American citizens should expect to see if this continues.

DUKE: Well, it's true that wars are easy to start and hard to end, and once you begin them, they don't follow necessarily a predictable course. And so it's very important that our leaders exercise wisdom and forethought as they head into the next steps of addressing this conflict and trying to either bring it to an end or manage it in its outcomes, Americans should stay vigilant. Iran and its allies do possess the ability to conduct terrorist attacks, and whether or not they're going to choose to execute those options will be seen in the next few days, but we've seen this type of activity before. 

We have a strong nation. We have a strong democracy. We have a government that's selected by our people and and so we aren't dependent on any particular leader or regime to keep us safe. And I think the resilience of the American people, just like the resilience of the Israeli people, will will see us through this crisis and and future ones.

EICHER: When we learned initially over the weekend that the U.S. had hit Iran, the New York Times blared a headline on its app, U.S. Enters War With Iran. So we asked whether that was ever accurate to say the United States was at war.

DUKE: So officially, the United States is not at war with Iran. We have no declaration of war by the U.S. Congress. We have a single military action directed by the President of the United States to address a particular threat. That threat has been an established and communicated position of the United States government since at least 2007 if not earlier, in 1993 under the Clinton administration, when Iranian aspirations for nuclear capability first appeared on the agenda of the U.S. president. 

So we are not at war with Iranians. Rather, we have addressed a particular threat, and for that to, that case, there would have to be severe expansion of Iranian military activities across the region, threats to our allies, for example, in the Gulf Cooperation Council, and a serious movement by Iran to destabilize the region before I think we would enter into any type of prolonged conflict. 

This is something I'm sure that President Trump wants to avoid, and I know that there are many involved in the discussions on the way forward, on this to prevent this from becoming an expanded conflict.

If there's anything about this conflict that warrants more attention from from Christians, it's that we should not enter into conflicts lightly, and we should realize always that there are unintended consequences and unintended victims of conflicts. And in this case, there are many millions of people who live in the region who would be caught in the middle of such a conflict. And so it would behoove Christians to consider what Our Lord said when he said, “Does not a king consider when he goes to war against another king whether he can defeat them or not, and we should be very careful and watchful and prayerful about our role in any conflict.

EICHER: That’s retired Marine Corps Colonel Darren Duke.

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