IRAN: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE AZTECS AND ALABAMA?

In an earlier writing, I suggested that the President as commander-in-chief of the armed forces has authority to engage in limited military action without a congressional declaration of war, and that a preemptive strike can be justified when the threat is instant and overwhelming and when waiting could make self-defense difficult or impossible. Trump’s deep-bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025 was justifiable on constitutional, legal, and moral grounds.

But the latest strike on Iran seems focused on bringing down the regime. Two reasons are given to justify this action. Are they valid? Let’s examine each in turn.

(1) The Iranian regime is a threat to world peace. The fanatical Shiite regime took power in 1979 and shortly thereafter took 57 Americans hostage and held them for 444 days. They and their puppet states have waged war against Israel, they have repeatedly threatened the United States and other nations, and they have built a nuclear arsenal in violation of the non-proliferation treaty. Allowing the Iranian regime to continue this build-up could lead to a nuclear apocalypse. If nothing short of bringing down the regime could prevent this, bringing down the regime is justified.

(2) The Iranian regime terrorizes and brutalizes the people of Iran. Assuming this is true (and I believe it is), does this justify foreign intervention? This is a more difficult question. Many Iranians – some say as many as 80% -- oppose the current regime because of its flagrant human rights violations, but many others support it. At what point do a nation’s human rights violations become so extreme that other nations have a right or duty to step in and stop those abuses? We believe in self-determination, but what if the people of another country choose a government that suppresses the rights of some of its own citizens? If the Iranian regime had the support of 51% of its own citizens, does the U.S. have a right to intervene to protects the rights of the minority?

Let’s consider two lessons from history. First, consider a lesson from the Spanish Conquest of the Americas in the 1500s. In many ways, the Spaniards brought to the people of the Americas a better religion and better way of life. But did that justify them in forcing a better religion and a better way of life on people?

The Spaniards themselves questioned this. In 1538-39 Fr. Francisco de Vitoria, a Dominican priest and Prima Professor of Theology at Spain’s leading university (Salamanca), presented a series of lectures on the legitimacy of the Spanish Conquest. He analyzed the arguments presented to justify the Conquest and rejected most of them but accepted two.

First, he rejected the suggestion that Native Americans had no claim to sovereignty because they were infidels, noting that the legitimacy of human government does not depend upon the regeneration of either the rulers or their subjects.

Second, he denied that the Native Americans lived in a “state of nature” without human government. He noted that they had distinctive, albeit sometimes tyrannical, governments and well-developed laws and customs.

Third, he denied the validity of the Pope’s division of the New World between Spain and Portugal as a basis for conquest, because the Pope’s authority is spiritual and not temporal.

Fourth, he said, Israel’s conquest of Canaan was not a valid comparison because Israel acted under a direct command of God; Spain did not.

But Fr. Vitoria said two justifications of the Conquest were valid. First, a Christian nation may intervene in the internal affairs of another nation when that nation was unjustly condemning innocent persons to death. The Aztec holocaust of human sacrifice, involving up to 50,000 victims per year, was a sufficient basis for Spanish intervention.

Second, Fr. Vitoria said, God intends that all people have a right to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, citing the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. No one may be forced to accept the Gospel or even hear the Gospel, but if a pagan government refuses to allow its people to hear the Gospel, a Christian nation as a right and duty to intervene to make sure the people have the opportunity to hear the Gospel if they choose to do so.

A Jesuit theologian, Father Francisco Suarez of the Portuguese University of Coimbra, in his Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver and other writings, analyzed the relationship of natural law, the law of nations, human laws, and human customs. His conclusions were similar to those of Fr. Vitoria, but he added that, although a Christian nation may not interfere in the affairs of another nation because that nation’s practices violate the laws of Christianity, it may intervene when that pagan nation violates the law of nature. He cited the widespread Aztec practices of human sacrifice, cannibalism, and sodomy as justification for Spanish intervention.

So how do the works of Frs. Vitoria and Suarez apply to our war with Iran? The United States is justified in preventing Iran’s nuclear build-up as a threat to the peace, but may we intervene to prevent human rights violations within that nation?

Some say the Ayatolla is free to torture his own people as much as he wants, provided he leaves the rest of us alone. But do we ever reach a point at which we must say, “Enough is enough”?

Second, consider our own struggle in Alabama. Some call it the Civil War, others the War Between the States, others the War for Southern Independence or the War of Northern Aggression. Many in the North saw it as a war to liberate slaves and preserve the Union; many Southrons believed their resistance was a justified defense of states’ rights.

But after the war came “regime change;” some call it Reconstruction. As Lincoln envisioned it, it might have been time of healing. But as Southrons viewed it, Reconstruction became a reign of terror as a new system was forced upon them. The South reacted with Jim Crow, segregation, and more than a century of racial tension that is still not fully resolved. Forcing change upon people results in resistance, even change for their own good. Maybe especially change for their own good.

John Quincy Adams declared in 1821, “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

That sounds like good common sense. But are there exceptions? Is Iran an exception?

Think about it.

Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for American Law (morallaw.org), and as Chairman of the Board of the Plymouth Rock Foundation (plymrock.org). He and his wife Marlene live in rural Pike Road, Alabama, and may be contacted for speaking engagements at eidsmoeja@juno.com.

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.