Over the past weekend, some apologists for President Donald Trump’s recently ordered attacks on Iran argued that because Trump’s plans call for a quick strike, the attacks do not constitute a war. George Orwell is vindicated yet again.
These apologists believe that calling a war something else means it is not a war, and so moral and constitutional justifications are unnecessary.
No rational observer looking at 2,000-pound bombs being dropped on military targets and thousands of missiles being fired indiscriminately at both civilians and military personnel in Iran can conclude that these events constitute anything but a war.
That recognition triggers a series of analyses — moral, constitutional and legal.
The moral dimension addresses both the causes and the conduct of war.
The standard requirements for a just war are that war is a last resort to avoid truly imminent violence or profound massive injustice. It must be triggered by a legitimate authority, its purpose must be clear and just, and the damage it produces must not outweigh the evil it purports to eliminate. Its conduct must avoid killing non-combatants, and the weapons and tactics used must be proportionate to the war’s objectives.
Just war, of course, prohibits the employment of any weapons that fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants.
Trump’s war in Iran fails all these. It was not commenced by a legitimate authority as Congress has not declared war on Iran. The president and his folks have not identified any imminent violence Iran was about to inflict upon the U.S. They have confused the public on the war’s purpose. Is it to force out the current Iranian government or to destroy its offensive weaponry and nuclear capabilities or — the newest condition — to eliminate its navy?
None of these is a just cause as the U.S. has no moral or legal basis for removing a foreign government or emasculating it in the face of its enemies. As for damage, we have seen already the killing of 150 little girls while at a school last weekend and the attacks on a Tehran hospital.
The failure of Trump’s war to comply even minimally with moral standards is also exemplified by the constitutional implications raised by a presidentially initiated war. When James Madison and his colleagues were addressing the war clauses in the Constitution, they were in easy agreement that if the president could both declare war and wage war, he wouldn’t be a president, he’d be prince.
Hellbound and Down 