When America Strikes Iran, It's Not Aggression — It's Long-Overdue Accountability

Forty-Seven Years of Patience Ends

November 4, 1979. That's when Iran declared war on the United States, whether Washington chose to acknowledge it or not. Students — state-sponsored, state-organized, state-celebrated — stormed our embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. That was the opening act.

What followed was four and a half decades of Iranian-sponsored killing: the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983 that killed 241 American servicemen. The Khobar Towers bombing in 1996. The IED networks that killed hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — explosively formed penetrators, Iranian-designed, Iranian-supplied, Iranian-directed. The Houthi missile campaigns against American naval vessels. The drone strikes against our bases in Syria and Iraq that injured dozens and killed three soldiers at Tower 22 in Jordan in January 2024.

Iran has been conducting low-grade warfare against the United States for nearly half a century. America's response has been, with isolated exceptions, patience. Diplomatic protest. Sanctions. More patience.

Now President Trump has ordered major combat operations against Iranian missile production facilities. Breitbart and multiple other outlets confirmed the operations are underway, with Trump stating publicly the goal is to "obliterate" Iran's ability to threaten the region with long-range missiles.

I want to say something clearly, as a Christian woman who has prayed about this and thought hard about it: this is just.

What Just War Requires

The church has thought carefully about war for two thousand years. Augustine, Aquinas, the Protestant reformers — they developed criteria for what makes a war morally permissible. The just war tradition isn't a rubber stamp on any military action a government chooses to take. It's a rigorous framework that asks specific questions.

Is the cause just? Iran has attacked American assets and personnel continuously. American self-defense is not debatable.

Is the authority legitimate? The President of the United States, under Article II and the War Powers Resolution, has authority to respond to ongoing attacks on American forces and interests.

Is the intent right? Dismantling the missile production infrastructure of a regime that has used those missiles against US forces, American allies, and civilian populations is not conquest. It's disarmament.

Is it proportionate? Striking missile factories — military infrastructure — rather than civilian populations satisfies the proportionality requirement that distinguishes legitimate military action from war crimes.

Is it a last resort? Only if you believe 47 years of Iranian attacks constitute a series of provocations still awaiting diplomatic resolution. I don't. Most Americans don't either.

The pacifist answer — the one that says no military action is ever just — is not the Christian tradition. It is one strand of Christian thought, and a minority strand at that. The dominant Christian tradition, from Augustine through C.S. Lewis, has held that the refusal to protect the innocent from the violent is itself a moral failure. The shepherd who refuses to defend the sheep from the wolf isn't holy. He's derelict.

What Our People Have Carried

My son served two tours in Iraq. He came home, thank God. But his friend Marcus didn't, killed by an IED in 2007 that investigators later traced to Iranian Revolutionary Guard supply chains. I sat with Marcus's mother at the funeral. She didn't know then — most Americans didn't know then — how directly Tehran's hands were on the weapon that killed her son.

The families of the Tower 22 soldiers — Sergeant William Rivers, Specialist Kennedy Sanders, Specialist Breonna Moffett — know. They know exactly who bears responsibility for those deaths. And they have been waiting for an answer that matches the crime.

I'm not bloodthirsty. Nobody who has sat with a Gold Star mother is bloodthirsty. But I believe in accountability. And I believe that a government's first obligation — the reason God ordained civil authority in Romans 13 — is to protect its people from those who would destroy them.

Pray, and Be Honest About Why

Pray for the service members conducting these operations. Pray for the Iranian people, who did not choose the regime that rules them. Pray for wisdom in the leadership making these decisions.

And be honest — with yourself and with your church — about the alternative. The alternative is more waiting. More patience. More funerals for American soldiers killed by Iranian weapons while diplomats schedule another round of talks. More appeasement dressed up as prudence.

America has tried that. We've tried it for 47 years. The result is a nuclear-capable Iran with advanced missile infrastructure and 47 years of experience killing Americans with impunity.

This is accountability. Long overdue. And I will not apologize for saying so from a place of faith.