The evil and incoherence of targeting civilian infrastructure

President Trump has renewed his threats to destroy Iranian civilian infrastructure such as power stations and bridges, which could result in a humanitarian disaster.  By longstanding principles of just war doctrine, this would be gravely immoral.  The innocent do not lose the right to their property and capacity to get on with ordinary everyday life by virtue of living under an unjust and oppressive regime.  Deliberately to inflict such suffering on them is to become a second oppressor, not a liberator.  As Pope Leo XIV has said:

[Among] certain non-negotiable requirements… [on] the decision to use lethal force… [is to] ensure robust protection for civilians and the infrastructures necessary for their survival… When we witness the bombing of civilians, attacks on hospitals, schools or vital infrastructure, and violence that affects children, we are confronted with scandals that wound humanity itself. (Magnifica Humanitas 200, 216)

This is not a novel teaching but simply the reiteration of what has long been standard Catholic moral theology, and in any event it is an obvious implication of natural law principles governing respect for the lives and property of the innocent.  A faithful Catholic cannot approve of deliberate attacks on civilian lives, property, or infrastructure any more than he could approve of abortion, theft, or vandalism.  As the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church says:

The good of the human person must take precedence over the interests of the parties to the conflict.  The principle of humanity inscribed in the conscience of every person and all peoples includes the obligation to protect civil populations from the effects of war.  That minimum protection of the dignity of every person, guaranteed by international humanitarian law, is all too often violated in the name of military or political demands which should never prevail over the value of the human person. (504-505)

Similarly, Pope St. John Paul II taught:

War cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations. (Address to the Diplomatic Corps, January 13, 2003)

The need to protect civilian lives and property was a special concern of Pope Pius XII during World War II:

The Holy See has always been, and still is, greatly preoccupied, out of a heart filled with constant solicitude, with the fate of civil populations defenseless against the aggressions of war.  Since the outbreak of the present conflict, no year has passed that We have not appealed in Our public utterances to all the belligerents – men who also have human hearts molded by a mother’s love – to show some feeling of pity and charity for the sufferings of civilians, for helpless women and children, for the sick and the aged, on whom a rain of terror, fire, destruction, and havoc pours down out of a guiltless sky… If aerial bombardments must continue to form part of this harrowing war, let them with all possible care be directed only against objects of military value and spare the homes of noncombatants and the treasured shrines of art and religion. (September 26, 1942)

The threat to destroy Iranian civilian infrastructure also illustrates the incoherence of much of the rhetoric by which the war’s defenders try to rationalize it.  For example, it is often claimed that if the Iranian regime were ever to get hold of a nuclear weapon, neither diplomacy nor deterrence would prevent them from using it against either the U.S. or Israel.  The regime is so suicidally irrational and ruthless (so it is alleged) that it would launch such a nuclear attack even though this would guarantee a retaliatory strike that would utterly destroy Iran.

But if that were true, how could an attack on Iranian civilian infrastructure bring the regime to its knees or to bargaining table?  You can’t have it both ways.  If the regime really were so irrational that even the threat of annihilation would not deter it from using nuclear weapons, then it would also be too irrational to be moved by attacks on civilian infrastructure.  But if it can be prompted to change course by attacks on civilian infrastructure, then surely it can be deterred from using nuclear weapons by the threat of massive retaliation.

Here is another bit of incoherence.  The war’s defenders routinely say that they hope for the liberation of the Iranian people.  That implies that Iran’s civilian population are the innocent victims of the Iranian regime.  But if they are innocent, then U.S. attacks on the civilian population’s infrastructure would be no less unjust than the regime’s oppression of the population.  Again, they would make the U.S. a second oppressor, rather than a liberator.

On the other hand, suppose the war’s defenders were to appeal to a theory of collective guilt in order to defend attacks on civilian infrastructure.  That is to say, suppose they were to claim that the entire population of Iran somehow bears sufficient responsibility for the crimes of the regime for it to be legitimate to target civilian infrastructure no less than military targets.  Such a doctrine of total war is simply evil by just war standards, but put that aside for the moment.  The point is that it would, given this theory, no longer make sense to speak of “liberating” the Iranian people.  For on this scenario, there are no innocent people in Iran to be liberated from evildoers; there are only evildoers.  The war would not be a war of liberation but entirely punitive.

Again, you can’t have it both ways.  If you think it is legitimate to attack civilian infrastructure, then you cannot coherently claim to be interested in liberating the Iranian people.  But if you are sincerely interested in liberating the Iranian people, then you cannot approve of attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Related articles:

The U.S. war on Iran is manifestly unjust

America’s conflict in Iran is not a just war

Just war doctrine and the duties of soldiers

Does just war doctrine require moral certainty?

Misunderstanding the “just cause” condition of just war doctrine

No, the U.S. has not been at war with Iran for 47 years