Iran, at least its military and nuclear sites, has taken a pounding lately. First from Israel, then from America. This was a good example of a just war.
We had:
- An unambiguously hateful enemy (who tried very hard with great and deliberate effort to make themselves hateful)
- A clear element of prevention–stopping a nuclear threat from a nation governed by Islamic religious fanatics
- Protection on an innocent nation, Israel, which posed no threat to Iran and which did not want to cause trouble. For years Iran had threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Also, Iran funded murderous proxy quasi-states to do its dirty work against Israel.
When an evil regime like this is only months away from acquiring a nuclear weapon, something should be done. And something was done.
Israel acted first, taking out military installations. Then America acted, doing what only we could do, with our B-2 bombers and its heavy munitions taking out deeply imbedded nuclear installations.
We took a real action for peace. It was prevention. It was timely. It was right and good.
It was a just war. The Bible says that there is, “a time for war and a time for peace,” (Ecclesiastes 3:8). This was clearly a time for war.
Now, some clamor for peace at all costs. Some of that clamoring comes from church circles. But those people do not take a sober account of the condition of the world and the condition of humanity. It is a fallen world. There is sin in it. There are bad men in it, and some of those men are in positions of power. Calling for peace in the face of evil, violent enemies who actively threaten to kill is kind of selfish. It plays right into hands of the bad men.
There’s a time for toughness, and this was it. Compare to the naive (willfully naive?) way that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry wanted to deal with Iran. Their way was to have negotiations with this hardened enemy, as if sitting under their (Obama, Clinton and Kerry’s) enlightened wisdom will make even the toughest adversaries soften. Truckloads of cash were given to Iran in exchange for merely delaying their nuclear program. That’s all we got: a short delay. And that’s assuming they wouldn’t cheat. We got taken.
Christians should, if possible, be peacemakers: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” (Matthew 5:9), but being a peacemaker doesn’t mean being foolish. Sometimes you need to take the long view. It’s not peacemaking if the enemy (when you have enough evidence to know that they are wicked and lying) is using your lack of wisdom to start a big war later.
America, despite its faults, has been a force for good in the world, more than most people realize. For example, after WWII, how much land did we take when the war was over? None! Unless you count the space in the cemeteries where our soldiers were buried. How often does a nation win a war and not take spoils? Compare that to the Soviet Union, which took a third of Europe after the war was over.
America (and I would say it’s largely because of our Christian heritage) is the best and most unselfish nation on earth. Jesus said–though in the context of Christian discipleship, but I think it still applies generally–“from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked,” (Luke 12:48). I believe the U.S. has been (mainly) a good steward of what God has given it.
Sadly, strangely, there has been a strand within the church which seems embarrassed by this thought. We hear of church people decrying ‘nationalism’. Would they prefer ‘internationalism’? When we look at the UN or the EU how much Christianity do we see? How many wars do they prevent? Would they have stopped Iran from getting nuclear weapons? No! But they are good at producing a lot of talk.
While a Christian’s first kingdom is in heaven, God has also planted that Christian in a nation while he is in this world. It’s not unspiritual to have some reasonable enthusiasm for that nation, especially when it does good things like preventing death and destruction.
If we can’t be nationalistic, let us at least be patriotic.
The rest of the world notices the good in America better than we do. When Alice and I were overseas, in Vietnam for seven years, I gradually came to realize how valuable it is to have an American passport, to have America as my default nation. It shouldn’t be taken for granted.
I was constantly amazed at the admiration and attraction the Vietnamese had for America. It was surprising, especially since the Vietnam War (they call it the American War) one would expect some pockets of resentment, at least among the elderly. But there was none that I could see. On the contrary, there was no other country that people wanted to move to more, or at least have some kind of foothold in. I think that even members of the communist government felt that way. Why? America was seen as a place of freedom and opportunity. Those things seemed even more of an attraction than the thought of getting rich. The desire was so strong among some people that I felt I had to remind them that the U.S. had its problems, that the streets were not paved with gold. My warnings did not diminish their attraction to America one bit.
I think the people of America need to be grateful. We live in the greatest country. We still do a lot good in the world. Liberalism and progressivism threaten to undo it, to make us selfish and wicked, but let our store of Christianity push back against those things. Let’s not let them win.
Our actions against Iran were timely, measured and unselfish. They were also kind of brilliant. The world will be safer with Iran not having nuclear weapons–and our nation was the nation that made that happen.