I was recently asked to comment on Al Mohler’s episode of The Briefing from Monday April 20th because it touches on the controversy around Pope’s Loe XIV’s interactions with the Trump Administration and Just War Theory. I am not going to comment on the first 11 minutes of the podcast except to say they contain a poor recounting of Church History seemingly designed to make the papacy look bad. But since they are not necessary to his discussion of Just War Theory I am not going to discuss them.
Just war theory is meant to frustrate our desire to solve problems with violence. Just war theory is meant to provide comfort to those force by circumstances to abandon insistence on being pacemakers. This is important to remember as we move forward, we are not trying to justify wars that are fought, we are trying to determine if nations going to war are acting justly. Now I will credit Mohler that he does a good job laying out the premise of Just War Theory (15:35 mark He lists the following as necessary for a war to be just:
- There must be just cause (must be defensive)
- Must be legitimate authority
- There must be right intention
- It must be a last resort
- Must be a hope for success
- There must be proportionality
- There must be a just peace
The problem is that as soon as Mohler lists these he starts qualifying them to defend the Trump Administration. His desire to defend conservative politics overrides his explanation of Just War Theory.He defends the war in Iran as having a just cause because of the list of Iran’s officials offenses in the past, but he does not provide a legitimate threat in the present. He then goes on to defend the Administration on the basis that Iran having nuclear weapons meets “all the criteria” for a just war. This simply is false. (Aside Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told Congress Iran was not close to gaining this capacity). Even accepting the idea of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon was the basis for the war Mohler is wrong to say that satisfies all the conditions since the conditions include how the war is conducted and ended. Just War theory forces us to ask were the strikes on Iran necessary and proportional force for preventing the injustice of the opponent and the simple answer is, no. This war does not meet those criteria since the strikes to “reopen” the Strait of Hormuz do not accomplish the goals Mohler laid out but are simply attempts to rectify a situation caused by those actions. This is then outside Just War Theory. But let’s back up even further, what means other than a surprise attack did the Administration try for correcting the situation they claim was such an imminent threat? Because remember point four of Mohler’s list, war must be a last resort. What did the Administration do to rectify the situation in Iran before resorting to bombs? Mohler’s defense is that Iran has been a threat since 1979 but this does not answer the criteria since there was no active threat (according to Hegseth) and no actions were taken to improve relations.
Mohler then undermines his entire argument since he admits that President Trump has been “confusing” about what constitutes success. If there is no defined goal that means there was no clear objective. If the President has been confusing about what it would take to bring the war to a successful end then it has no clear objective, since a defined objective would naturally leave clear outcomes for success. Mohler is even worse when he comes to trying to defend proportionality. He simply says Iran refused to hand over enriched materials but does not demonstrate how this justifies the attacks the US has carried out. I do credit Mohler for at least accurately presenting the points of Just Wat Theory but he proved completely incompetent in grounding a defense of the conflict in Iran within the theory. I found this to be a poor display of partisan politics shoehorned into theology.
I want to be very clear before I wrap this up, I am not in any way condemning the Administration’s decision to attack Iran on political or economic grounds. I am far from an expert in those fields. I am here to critique the conflict in terms of Christian Just War Theory and specifically as presented by Al Mohler. I would also point out that the grounds for Christian Just War Theory are high. Further, there are times where we can say that a war is justified (as some have done with World War II) while acknowledging that not every action in them meets that threshold (firebombing Dresden). Again the role of Just War Theory is to force us to confront our tendencies toward harm and violence not to provide rustication for conflict. Mohler did not impartially critique this conflict through the lens of Just War Theory, he tried to use Just War Theory as a protective shield for the partisan politics he favors.
Squinting in the Light 
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