On the illiberal left and the defeatist right, America's military campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran is being condemned as "a war of choice, not a war of necessity."
I'm here to make the case for wars of choice.
My argument is simple: Delaying wars does not ensure lasting peace. On the contrary, delaying wars has often led to wars more costly in blood and treasure. World War II is the most obvious example.
A war of choice is a conflict we decide to wage to achieve vital goals before our enemies push our backs up against the wall.
American troops should never be in a fair fight. If our enemies see that we have both the means and the will to defeat them, that may deter them. Nothing else will – certainly not endless negotiations and attempts to appease them.
What about the related argument that Iran's rulers did not pose an "imminent threat"? It's irrelevant.
First, because even under the most creative interpretations of international law and just-war theory, there's no prohibition against addressing threats that are not "imminent."
Second, because there is no agreed-upon definition of imminence. If your enemy picks up a pistol, does that constitute an imminent threat? Or must you wait until you see his finger on the trigger – by which time it may too late for you to defend yourself?
The 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy – the NSS that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – explicitly endorsed preemptive action against gathering threats.
In line with that criteria, CIA Director John Ratcliffe last week told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran posed a "constant threat to the United States...and posed an immediate threat" before the war began.
For decades, we have allowed the threat from the self-proclaimed jihadis in Tehran to metastasize. They've been building nuclear weapons facilities under mountains. They've been funding, arming, and instructing terrorist militias beyond their borders.
They've plotted assassinations and kidnappings in America and Europe. They've been amassing thousands of drones and missiles.
The regime's allies in Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang have been assisting them militarily, economically, and diplomatically – not because they embrace Khomeinist theology but because they want the Islamic Republic to become a more powerful member of their anti-American axis.
Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's "supreme leader" from 1989 until his timely death on Feb. 28th, was a man with a plan. But that plan required patience and, on Oct. 7, 2023, Yahya Sinwar, the commander of Hamas in Gaza, jumped the gun, invading Israel and carrying out mass murders, mass rapes, and hostage-taking.
On Oct. 8, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel from the north. The Jewish state found itself fighting a multifront war of necessity. It was not a given that, over the months that followed, Israel would manage to cripple both Hamas and Hezbollah.
Strikes against Israel directly from Iranian territory began in April 2024. That phase of the conflict culminated with the Twelve-Day War in June of last year, a joint Israel-U.S. operation that halted after President Trump sent B-2 bombers to strike some of Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities.
After that, President Trump probably figured that Iran's rulers had learned a lesson and would soon look for a deal.
Instead, Iran's rulers immediately went to work on Pickaxe Mountain, a nuclear facility that was to be buried so deep that even MOPs, Massive Ordnance Penetrators, couldn't destroy it.
In addition, between the June 24, 2025 ceasefire and the start of the current campaign on Feb. 28, 2026, Iran's rulers not only replaced all the missiles and drones lost in the Twelve-Day War – they added thousands more.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is producing interceptors at anything like that rate.
Last Friday, the regime fired two ballistic missiles at Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, over 2,300 miles from Iran. That demonstrated that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was lying when he said the regime wasn't building missiles that could strike as far as Europe.
One of two Iranian missiles targeting the joint American-British military base failed in flight, the other was intercepted by an SM-3. Currently, the US can only produce about 70 of these per year at a cost of over $20 million each.
I'm now going to make an odd assertion: We've been lucky. Imagine if Mr. Sinwar, killed by Israeli forces in October 2024, had not been a genocidaire in a hurry. Imagine if Tehran's nuclear program had continued to develop while its arsenal of missiles and drones continued to expand without interruption over the past two years.
Eventually, we would have come to a point where a war of choice would not have been an option. Instead, we'd have had to contemplate a war of necessity whose outcome would be, at best, uncertain.
Tehran, in concert with its nuclear-armed allies in Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang, might have offered America this deal: no war in return for concessions that would lead to a new world order, what Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping has called "a common destiny for mankind" with Beijing making and enforcing the rules.
We might then have deceived ourselves, that "bad agreements are better than no agreements," and that it's only prudent to "avoid escalation," and besides "there's no military solution."
Great nations can decline into impotence with astonishing rapidity. You've seen that happen to some of our old friends in Europe.
President John F. Kennedy was a Cold War liberal who today would not fit in either on the illiberal left or the defeatist right. "There are risks and costs to action," he observed. "But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction."