At the onset, I would like make it clear that this column simply tries to make a little analysis of the two opposing stances with respect to the war going on in the Middle East: US-Israel vs Iran.
1. I came across in the internet the Pope Leo’s stance concerning the war in the Middle East. In the post, the Pope said: “Enough of the display of power! Enough of war. True strength is shown in serving life.” In another source, The Guardian quoted the Pope, saying: “The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.”
I also came across a video reel wherein US President Donald Trump had an ambush interview while walking in what looked like an open field. Trump had to stop walking to answer the questions directly related to the Pope’s stance on the war. Trump gave responses such as: “I’ve nothing against the Pope.” “No, no, I have to do what’s right.”
Trump continued: “The Pope made a statement. He says: ‘Iran can have a nuclear weapon’. I say ‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon…. If they do the whole world would be in jeopardy. The Middle East would be blown up’.” Trump added, “If the Pope look at the 42,000 people that were killed over the last two or three months as protestors, with no weapons, no nothing… – take a look at that…. So I can disagree with the Pope.”
2. On the one hand, in the Pope’s statement, “enough of war” shows the Pope’s desire and demand for peace. As the world’s religious leader, he is exercising his duty as moral authority. Next, the phrase “enough of the display of power” suggests that US war with Iran is prodded by a desire to merely show military might. The word “display” is crucial. And the clause “the world is ravaged by a handful of tyrants…” also suggests that the war is an act of tyranny with an intent to ravage. The word “tyrants” could be referring to Trump and his right-hand men plus Israel’s Netanyahu.
The Pope has the right to comment on the war. It is his duty as religious leader: to steer the world into peace, harmony, and Godliness. It is his prerogative to say that “true strength is shown in serving life.” And to lament in saying: “…yet it [ravage] is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.”
3. On the other hand, in saying, “I have nothing against the Pope,” Trump makes it clear that it is not between him and the Pope. He asserts that he has “to do what’s right” in the geopolitical arena. For Trump, there is danger. If Iran can have nuclear weapon, “the whole world would be in jeopardy. The Middle East would be blown up.”
It can be seen that Trump supports this claim in mentioning the 42,000 unarmed protesters that were killed by the regime over the last two or three months. In Trump’s mind, it appears that if the Iranian regime could do it to its own people, it could also do it to other nations. This possibility could be seen as being corroborated by the fact that Iran even hit those neutral neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the war.
Trump also seems to challenge the Pope, in saying: “If the pope look at the 42,000 people that were killed….” Here he seems to invite the Pope to take a look at what the Iranian regime did to its own people, a sort of a massacre, and to evaluate the regime’s act of violence. It seems that Trump is trying to say that if this kind of mentality were allowed to have nuclear weapon, America and Israel would be the first countries in danger, as Iran used to say: “Death to America. Death to Israel.”
4. If the war were to be applied with the “just war theory,” it would seem to require a sort of a historical criticism be done. “What really happened? That is the question that occupies the historical critic…” as Harrington writes (Harrington, 1981, 27). This war is not a “child of a cracked bamboo” (in vernacular, “anak sa liking kawayan”). It has background, events in time and space that lead to this present conflict. It would be necessary to take a look into the past in order to be able to weigh objectively both sides of the war happening in the now.
Thus, it would seem to be less rigorous to simply say that war should be enough, be stopped. It is because the geopolitical factors that give rise to this present conflict is so heavy such that, it is not that easy for Trump and Netanyahu to simply stop at the appeal of the a religious leader as the Pope, on the one hand; and that it is not that easy also for the Iranian regime to simply surrender to Trump’s camp, on the other hand.
For Trump and Netanyahu, the nuclear weapon issue is very serious, that any country couldn’t just freely develop its own. Its destructive power is incredibly enormous, as shown in Einstein’s equation, E = MC^2. If such a weapon could fall into wrong hands, the world would be in jeopardy.
For the Iranian regime, America is an “arrogant, existential threat that supports Israel.” Iran’s anger at the US is said to have been rooted in the 1953 CIA-backed coup, the 1979 Islamic revolution and the US sanctions. It could be seen that, for the Iranian regime, it cannot just allow the US to continue bullying.
Thus, it is a deeply rooted war, that the Pope’s stop-the-war appeal to Trump has just been disagreed. (It may be surmised that the same appeal, supposedly, to the Iranian regime, could also be disagreed.) There could be ceasefire, but unless the root cause is healed, there could be no genuine peace, ut reliquiae tenebrae super terram.
