John Stuart Mill explains why war of some sort is likely to be a permanent part of the human condition in this Vale of Tears:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
― John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy
The pacifist is convinced that the calamity of war is the worst thing in the world. He is badly mistaken in that belief, a lesson History repeatedly teaches those who will learn from the sad experience of others.
As long as there are evil nations and evil men, there will be war. I prepared the following for elsewhere, but it’s something that pacifist Pope Bob from Chicago should consider.
Amalek and Iran
The story of the present conflict between Iran and Israel perhaps has a far older origin than one would expect. So let us start at the beginning.
In Genesis 25:29-34, Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of porridge. Verse 34 states that Esau despised his birthright, and that birthright (to be a part of the people choosen by God as the ones through whom the Messiah would come) was holy. Thus, Esau despised what was holy.
Genesis 36:9-14 gives the generations of Esau. One of Esau’s sons – Eliphaz – had intimacy with a concubine named Timna, through whom Amalek was born. Thus, Amalek was the illegimate grandson of Esau who had rejected his holy birthright. As will be seen, Amalek carried that rejection of holiness to his descendents.
After the children of Israel had escaped slavery in Egypt to go into the desert, Exodus 17:8-16 records that the descendants of Amalek attacked them for no apparent reason. Deuteronomy 25:17-18 states that the Amalekites attacked unarmed stragglers, the weak, the weary, the “tail” of the Israelite caravan instead of a head on confrontation with armed Israelite soldiers. Their cowardice in attacking the weakest is why the Lord said in Exodus 17:16 that He would have war with the Amalekites from generation to generation. Targeting the most vulnerable – women, children, the sick, the injured, the aged – was intolerable and unforgivable to God.
1st Samuel 15 records that the Lord had ordered King Saul to finally put an end to the Amalekites because they had been targeting the weakest and most vulnerable. This order was an action of protection by the Lord to ensure that the Amalekites would longer prey on the frail and the fragile. Why did they do this? Because, having despised what was holy (being Esau’s descendants), they were jealous of God’s choosen people (whom they could have been were it not for Esau their grandfather having sold his birthright for a bowl of stew).
As the reader likely knows, King Saul decimated the Amalekites except that he spared Amalekite King Agag (and presumably his family), and the best of the sheep and cattle. The prophet Samuel confronted him about his disobedience and told him that the Lord had rejected him as King. Then Samuel hacked Agag to pieces, something that Saul should have done. Remember: when you purposely despise what is holy and prey on the weak, God’s judgment will come.
But the story does not end there because Agag had childern who in turn had descendants, one of whom was Haman the Agagite in Persia, as the Book of Esther tells us. Haman had conspired to finally do what the Amalekites in the time of Moses had been unable to do: eradicate the Jews throughout the Middle East. But as Esther records, his plan backfired and he was impaled on the pole which he had erected out of envy to execute Mordecai, Esther’s uncle.
What if, though, our story does not end here? What if Haman had children (since the Book of Esther tells us he had a wife)? And what if those descendants continued on in Persia over the centuries, the land which today we know as Iran. While this is purely speculation, perhaps the mad mullahs who took 66 American citizens as hostage for 444 days in 1979 are the descendants of Haman, an Amalekite through Agag, if not biological then certainly spiritual. Look at what Deuteronomy 25:17-18 states:
17 “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God.”
Isn’t that what the Iranian terrorists have been doing since 1979? Except for the Iran Iraq War (1980-1988) started by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (in order to prevent export of Shiite revolution threatening his evil empire in Iraq), hasn’t the Iranian Shiite theocracy always been attacking the innocent and avoiding an out in the open fight? The Iranian-financed Hamas attack against Israeli civilians on October 7th, 2023 is a prime example of this, and exactly what the mad mullahs of Tehran have been doing for 47 years. Indeed, during the present conflict, these mad men have been attacking their own Muslim neighbors who has nothing to do with the situation. It is on this basis that the war against Iran is just, right, and correct. The innocent must be protected, including innocent Persians enslaved by a diabolical tyranny that has rejected its own birthright.
So when Pope Leo XIV issues passive aggressive insinuations and innuendos against President Trump, couching his words in “just war” theory from St. Thomas Aquinas, maybe he should go back further in history to Genesis 25:34 and Deuteronomy 25:17-18. God will not forgive someone who unrepentantly rejects what is holy and then victimizes the most innocent and most vulnerable. That is why the government of Iran must be utterly defeated and the country freed from tyranny.