We have established the case for why the war with Iran was legitimate according to libertarian principles. Our case was based on three primary facts: The Islamic Republic has forfeited any legitimate claim to sovereignty, the individual rights of 90 million Iranians and other individuals globally affected by the regime need protection, and international institutions cannot enforce these protections. We will now respond to libertarians’ most commonly invoked criticisms of the war and explain why they do not hold up under scrutiny.

THE IRAN CEASEFIRE IS A PAUSE, AND IT MAY BE A SHORT ONE

The casualties we count, and the ones we don’t

Many critics of the war point to civilian deaths as proof of its immorality. Yet many of those now expressing outrage over Iranians killed by American strikes were silent when the regime gunned down thousands of young protesters in January. Moral seriousness requires consistency, and it requires comparison with the alternatives.

The deaths of Iranian civilians are tragic. The killing of schoolgirls in a misdirected strike is horrific, but the relevant question is, where to lay the blame for this horrific event? Yes, we stipulate — at the time of this writing, it is not fully clear whether these deaths were due to a misfired Iranian rocket — that it may have been a U.S. or Israeli military ordinance that directly caused these tragic deaths. But whose fault was this? In our view, the ultimate responsibility lies with the murderous Iranian regime for acting in a manner that justified the U.S. and Israeli incursions in the first place.

Another relevant question is not whether this war has costs. It is whether those costs are greater than the alternative.

The alternative is not peace. It is either the status quo of the Iranian government’s terrorist regime staying in power, or it is an Iranian uprising against a regime that has already demonstrated its willingness to slaughter civilians at massive scale. A full-scale revolt would pit unarmed protesters against a security state with no interest in minimizing casualties and every interest in maximizing terror. Modern precision weapons, guided by artificial intelligence, constrained by wanting to limit civilian casualties, and subject to international scrutiny, are capable of a degree of discrimination between military and civilian targets that no popular revolution can match.

Weak criticisms by libertarians

All too many libertarians condemn the U.S.-Israeli war on the Iranian government. Their most common criticisms of the war with Iran are that it is unconstitutional because Congress never approved it and that it is unpopular among the public.

The libertarians opposing the war on constitutional grounds or unpopularity include Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), former Rep. Justin Amash, Reason magazine, and comedian Dave Smith, among others.

Their reasoning is inconsistent.

The Iraq War was both authorized by Congress and supported by a majority of Americans when it launched in 2003. Few, if any, libertarians would argue that these facts legitimized that conflict. If constitutionality and popularity didn’t justify the Iraq War, they cannot be the deciding criteria for evaluating the Iran war either.

On the other hand, we must acknowledge that these eminent libertarians do indeed have a point that is not totally unreasonable: The Constitution does indeed stipulate that Congress, and only Congress, may declare war. However, for libertarians, this cannot be definitive.

The Constitution is itself not a totally libertarian document. Libertarians, qua libertarians, have a different basic premise: the non-aggression principle of this philosophy. Intrinsically bound up in this is the right of self-defense.

Stipulate, arguendo, that a majority of people, including all members of the House and Senate, became pacifists and would no longer support military defense against an invading entity. Would it then become unjustified for a stipulated libertarian president to order military defense? Not for libertarians who were acting compatibly with this philosophy. So much for mere popularity and the Constitution.

The practical case for this Iran war

None of our points argues for military intervention as a general principle, or for trusting governments to use force wisely. We instead pose an argument for this particular intervention, in these circumstances, against this regime, at this moment.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a government that has spent decades at war with its own people. The institutions designed to protect individual rights internationally have failed. The people of Iran have no realistic path to remove the regime themselves without a death toll that dwarfs anything the current campaign has produced.

TRUMP’S IRAN WAR IS PREVENTING A NORTH KOREA CRISIS

This regime is also an international threat, as more than sufficiently demonstrated by its past terrorist acts. The idea of a nuclear-armed Islamist regime is anathema to libertarians, the arguments of all too many leaders of this philosophical movement to the contrary notwithstanding.

If libertarianism means anything in the real world, if it is more than a set of principles to be admired, then the freedom of 90 million Iranians, and that of much of the rest of the world, not limited to the Middle East, is precisely the kind of outcome it should be willing to fight for.

James Delmore is an independent writer. Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth eminent scholar endowed chair and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans.