As Lasallians, as citizens, and as human beings, we are called on to decisively oppose the United States’ war with Iran — and everything it represents.

Regardless of your faith, I would hope we could all agree upon the moral quality of our banners — the school’s core values — and beyond them, on the power, importance, and necessity of love.

Love and human dignity are at the core of every healthy religion and morality.

War destroys them.

Solidarity — that cornerstone not only of Catholic Social Teaching, but humanity — does not call us to this war. I cannot see how the murder of school children helps us stand in solidarity with the Iranian people. I cannot see how any of our government’s recent actions lead to the building of a democratic nation and the reinforcement of Iranian self-determination. They seem only to aim for there being no nation at all.

Solidarity calls us to oppose this war, as does love and our understanding of human dignity.

Not for us to stand in solidarity with the Iranian regime, but with the people of the Middle East — continually pawns in superpowers’ games.

Love not for the theocratic regime, but the child shredded by shrapnel in a cafe, the pregnant women dying in a barn as healthcare collapses, and even the foreign soldier, called to protect a nation he might hate — away from his family, but lacking any better path.

It is implicit then, in our commitment to love, along with a concern for the poor and social justice, that we take a stand for decency against atrocity, and do not sacrifice love to hollow calls for national loyalty.

However, the end of the Iran war is not only necessary for the preservation of lives, sovereignty, and the pursuit of solidarity. It is vital for the survival of our American republic.

The war itself is a debacle. While the United States, spending nearly a trillion dollars on its military every year, can and is successfully destroying many targets in Iran — “targets” which happen to include elementary school children — the purpose and strategy of the war is dubious at best.

The last week has seen a deluge of morphing and expanding mission objectives. The purpose and end goal of the war hasn’t been clearly and consistently articulated, with aims changing every day, and the few consistent objectives being largely unrealistic.

In the end, it seems the only real result of a prolonged war will be to turn Iran into a failed state. Not only does this violate international law and basic morality, it also is essentially unnecessary, even for the protection of “American interests.” 

Most importantly, the start of the war in and of itself was blatantly unconstitutional. The idea that this is a “kinetic action,” not a war, and that Congress did not first have to declare war, is hilariously absurd, especially since a majority of the American public is against the conflict. If our government’s job is to represent us, it is surely failing.

And as Sen. Rand Paul asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio when the United States kidnapped the president of Venezuela, if someone kidnapped our president and bombed us, would it not be considered an act of war?

Except this time, we didn’t kidnap a foreign power’s leader; we killed one.

This war is part of a broader, violent American strategy to preserve our dominance — which, while nonsensical and ineffective, is still extremely dangerous. However, it also coincides with the continued increase of executive power. Both things are dangers to the republic.

Neither of these things will help respond to the cost-of-living crisis and the climate catastrophe, or result in the empowerment and rejuvenation of our democracy.

Both will lead toward authoritarianism, with the cost of more wars, more bases, and more arms being dumped onto the backs of taxpayers. Both will lead to the filling of arms contractors’ pockets, and coffins with young men like me.

It is true that as citizens, we must recognize the crisis America faces. Not just the crisis of our democracy, but the reckoning that comes with the end of unchallenged American supremacy and the possible collapse of all we have taken for granted in the face of climate instability.

But the republic’s answer must come in the form of a more democratic nation — a less violent, interventionist nation — and a nation whose government truly works for the good of the American people.

None of those things will be achieved through war with Iran. Allowing Iranian blood to be spilled uncontested only gives license to authoritarianism and all the worst responses to the crises of our civilization.

It is our duty as people to oppose this war — for the preservation of life and dignity, the protection of our fragile republic, and to stop those worst human impulses from dominating our response to upheaval.

Even in this time of great strife, where the news cycle is tiring and the world dispiriting, we must focus on love — love for the people of Iran and for ourselves, the American public. But we also must not confuse love with bloodlust or let it be secondary to the interests of power brokers and billionaires.

We must be unflinching in our understanding that the Iran war stands in opposition to our country’s core values, human dignity, and the necessity of love in the face of crisis.

So oppose it and all it represents, in the streets, in the papers, at the polls, and in the public square.