In an earlier 1819 News column, I suggested that the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces has authority to engage in limited military action without a congressional declaration of war, and that a preemptive strike can be justified when the threat is instant and overwhelming and when waiting could make self-defense difficult or impossible. Trump’s deep-bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025 was justifiable on constitutional, legal and moral grounds.
But the latest strike on Iran seems focused on bringing down the regime. Two reasons are given to justify this action:
1) The Iranian regime is a threat to world peace. The fanatical Shiite regime took power in 1979, and shortly thereafter took 66 Americans hostage, holding them for 444 days. They and their puppet states have waged war against Israel, have repeatedly threatened the U.S. and other nations, and have built a nuclear arsenal in violation of the non-proliferation treaty. Allowing the Iranian regime to continue this build-up could lead to a nuclear apocalypse. If nothing short of bringing down the regime could prevent this, bringing down the regime is justified.
2) The Iranian regime terrorizes and brutalizes its people. Assuming this is true (and I believe it is), is foreign intervention justified? Many Iranians – some say as many as 80% – oppose the current regime because of its flagrant human rights violations, but many others support it. At what point do a nation’s human rights violations become so extreme that other nations have a right or duty to stop those abuses? We believe in self-determination, but what if the people of another country choose a government that suppresses the rights of some of its own citizens? If the Iranian regime had the support of 51% of its own citizens, would the U.S. have a right to intervene to protect the rights of the minority?
Let’s consider two historical lessons. First, consider the Spanish Conquest of the Americas in the 1500s. In many ways, the Spaniards brought a better religion and way of life to the Americas. But did that justify them in forcing those things on people?
The Spaniards themselves questioned this. Fr. Francisco de Vitoria, a Dominican priest and theology professor at Spain’s leading university, presented a series of lectures on the legitimacy of the Spanish Conquest. Analyzing the arguments justifying the Conquest, he rejected all but two.
First, he rejected the suggestion that Native Americans had no claim to sovereignty because they were infidels, noting that the legitimacy of human government does not depend upon the regeneration of either the rulers or their subjects.
Second, he denied that the Native Americans lived in a “state of nature” without human government. He noted that they had distinctive, albeit sometimes tyrannical, governments and well-developed laws and customs.
Third, he denied the validity of the pope’s division of the New World between Spain and Portugal as a basis for conquest, because the pope’s authority is spiritual, not temporal.
Fourth, he said, Israel’s conquest of Canaan was not a valid comparison because Israel acted under a direct command of God; Spain did not.
But Vitoria said two justifications of the Conquest were valid. First, a Christian nation may intervene in the internal affairs of another nation when that nation is unjustly condemning innocent persons to death. The Aztec holocaust of human sacrifice – perhaps involving up to 50,000 victims annually – was a sufficient basis for Spanish intervention.
Second, Vitoria said, God intends that all people have a right to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, citing the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. No one may be forced to hear or accept the Gospel, but if a pagan government refuses to allow its people to hear it, a Christian nation has a right and duty to intervene to ensure people have the opportunity to hear it if they so choose.
A Jesuit theologian, Father Francisco Suarez, in his “A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver” and other writings, analyzed the relationships among natural law, the law of nations, human laws, and human customs. His conclusions were similar to Vitoria’s, adding that although a Christian nation may not interfere in another nation’s affairs because that nation’s practices violate the laws of Christianity, it may intervene when that pagan nation violates the law of nature. He cited the widespread Aztec practices of human sacrifice, cannibalism, and sodomy as justification for Spanish intervention.
How do the works of Vitoria and Suarez apply to our war with Iran? The United States is justified in preventing Iran’s nuclear build-up as a threat to the peace, but may we intervene to prevent human rights violations within that nation?
Some say the ayatollah may torture his own people as much as he wants, provided he leaves the rest of us alone. But do we ever reach a point at which we must say, “Enough is enough”?
Second, consider our own late unpleasantness in Alabama. Some call it the Civil War, others the War of Northern Aggression. Many in the North saw it as a war to liberate slaves and preserve the Union; many Southerners believed their resistance was a justified defense of states’ rights.
But after the war came “regime change,” a.k.a. Reconstruction. As Lincoln envisioned it, Reconstruction might have been a time of healing. But Reconstruction became a reign of terror in Southern eyes, as a new system was forced upon them. The South reacted with Jim Crow, segregation, and more than a century of racial tension that is still not fully resolved. Forcing change upon people results in resistance, even change for their own good. Maybe especially change for their own good.
“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be,” John Quincy Adams declared in 1821. “But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is a well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
That sounds like good common sense. But are there exceptions, and is Iran one of them?
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for American Law (morallaw.org), and as Chairman of the Board of the Plymouth Rock Foundation (plymrock.org). He and his wife Marlene live in rural Pike Road, Ala., and may be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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