If the reports that US/Israeli strikes quickly eliminated all of Iran’s top government and military leaders are true, that poses an unusual problem. When an enemy regime is “decapitated” there’s no one left with the authority to make a peace agreement. It could be a recipe for chaos— which we’ve seen before, in Iraq.

For a primer on how to assess this war (or any other) in the light of the Catholic just-war tradition, see my seminar here: