Let Us Meet, Let Us Talk: What the Church Asks When Washington Weighs a Short, Intense Return to War with Iran

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the United States has told its Gulf allies to brace for a short, intense campaign against Iran once next Tuesday’s midterm elections are over. On Thursday, the commander of American forces in the Middle East briefed the President in person at the White House. Most of the coverage has asked when the strikes will come and what they will hit. The Church starts somewhere else: can a nation bomb another into negotiating, and is that ever the road to peace?

The News Story

The United States has told several Gulf Arab governments to prepare for a short, intense military campaign against Iran after the November 3 midterm elections, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, October 28. The warning went through diplomatic and military channels. Two diplomats briefed on the matter gave the Associated Press a similar account and said President Donald Trump is weighing strikes on Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites but has not made a final decision.¹

On Thursday, October 29, Trump met at the White House with Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the Journal. The paper described in-person meetings between the president and Cooper as rare. The Pentagon and Central Command declined to comment. A White House official said the administration does not “comment on sensitive military plans that may or may not exist” and that Trump “keeps all options on the table” to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.²

The Journal reported that U.S. forces are restocking munitions in the region and preparing bombers and fighter jets, and that a Patriot missile defense system is being moved from Texas to Israel. An additional aircraft carrier strike group and a Marine expeditionary unit are expected to arrive next month, joining roughly 20 U.S. warships already in the Middle East.³

The war began on February 28, when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Iran answered with missile and drone attacks and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. A memorandum of understanding reached in June, meant to lead to a final peace agreement, later collapsed. The United States has not struck Iran since early September, but it maintains a naval blockade of Iranian ports. The Pentagon told Congress the war had cost $47.1 billion through October 16, with munitions accounting for more than 60 percent of that total.⁴

Trump has said he would not attack before the midterms. Asked on Tuesday whether strikes would follow the election, he said, “anything’s possible.” At a rally last week he said, “We may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree,” referring to the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign in the spring.⁵

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said some senators had been briefed on plans for the next phase of the war. Speaking at a Middle East Institute panel on Wednesday, he called the plan “insane” and said it would lead to “devastating escalation” and prolong the conflict. He said he could not share details. Republican strategist Karl Rove told Fox News that Iran should expect strikes after the election, noting two carriers in the region and a third on the way.⁶

Iran says the United States must lift the blockade before peace talks can begin, while Washington wants concessions on Iran’s nuclear program. Iran rejected a Qatari draft agreement on Sunday, and a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran would show no flexibility on the nuclear issue. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran remains in contact with mediators and warned of severe economic consequences from any new attack.⁷

The conflict continues to reach across the region. Saudi air defenses intercepted Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at Taif and the Eastern Province this week, and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh warned of possible attacks on Saudi airports. U.S. crude oil traded near $102 a barrel on Thursday.⁸

Catholic Social Teaching Analysis

Five Days and a Briefing

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that American officials had quietly told several Gulf governments to get ready. Once the November 3 midterm elections are over, the warning went, the United States may open a short, intense campaign against Iran. Munitions are being restocked, bombers and fighter jets readied, a Patriot battery flown from Texas to Israel, and another carrier strike group is due in the region next month.⁹ On Thursday, President Trump sat down at the White House with Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of American forces across the Middle East, along with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The Journal called the meeting rare.¹⁰

The President has not decided, and the White House says only that the President “keeps all options on the table” to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.¹¹ That is a grave concern, and no Catholic should wave it away. But the Journal’s sources describe the purpose of the plan in clear terms: another round of attacks is designed to weaken Iran and push it toward negotiations.¹² The President said the same thing in fewer words at a rally last week: “We may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree.”¹³

Sen. Chris Murphy, who has been briefed, called the plan “insane.”¹⁴ I haven’t been in that briefing room, and I won’t guess what has been planned or what was said. What I can do is take the stated logic at face value, because it is the logic of a great deal of modern statecraft: hit the other side hard enough, and they will come to the table. The Church has been weighing that logic for a long time, and over the last sixty years her judgment of it has only grown sharper.

War as an Instrument

Start with a word the Church keeps coming back to: instrument. In April 1963, six months after the Cuban missile crisis, Pope St. John XXIII wrote that people were “becoming more and more convinced that any disputes which may arise between nations must be resolved by negotiation and agreement, and not by recourse to arms.”¹⁵ In an age that boasts of its atomic power, he went on, “it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice.”¹⁶

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church gathers that teaching into one paragraph. War “is never an appropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, ‘it has never been and it will never be,’” because “it creates new and still more complicated conflicts.” It then repeats the warning Pius XII gave on the eve of the Second World War: “Nothing is lost by peace; everything may be lost by war.”¹⁷

Pope Leo XIV carries the same judgment into our own decade, and he names what he sees happening. In Magnifica Humanitas he describes “a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics, while the very ethical principles that had previously limited its use are being eroded.”¹⁸ A few paragraphs later comes a sentence I’d like to see taped above every planning table in the Pentagon: “It is much easier to start a war than to stop it.”¹⁹

This war is its own proof. It began on February 28. A memorandum of understanding in June was supposed to lead to a final peace, and it collapsed.²⁰ Eight months on, the Pentagon puts the cost at $47.1 billion, Houthi missiles are being fired at Saudi cities, and American crude sits above $100 a barrel.²¹ Short wars are always promised. The Compendium’s phrase about “new and still more complicated conflicts” describes this one with uncomfortable accuracy.

The Old Test and the New One

A Catholic has to be honest here about how the Church’s teaching on force has developed, because both the old form and the new one bear on this week.

The traditional test, still printed in the Catechism, places everything inside a prior duty: “All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.” Self-defense by arms comes into view only “once all peace efforts have failed.”²² Among the strict conditions that follow, “all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.”²³ The Second Vatican Council drew a further line that is worth hearing right now: “it is one thing to undertake military action for the just defense of the people, and something else again to seek the subjugation of other nations.”²⁴

Even St. Thomas Aquinas, who gave the just war tradition its classic shape, measured every war by its end. “Those who wage war justly aim at peace,” he wrote, and he quoted St. Augustine: “We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace.”²⁵ Thomas would want to know what peace a campaign actually aims at, and whether bombs are the road to it.

Leo XIV goes further than Thomas did. “Without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense,” he writes, the “just war” theory, “which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.” In its place he points to “far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.”²⁶ That is the measure Catholics now apply. And by it, a campaign whose stated aim is to bring the other side to the bargaining table is very hard to describe as self-defense in the strictest sense. As the reporting describes it, the bombs would be leverage.

A Culture of Negotiation

Leo asks for a change in political culture itself. “There is an urgent need to shift from the ‘culture of power’ to a genuine ‘culture of negotiation,’ in which dialogue and diplomacy become the standard means of resolving conflicts.”²⁷ To those who govern, he repeats the appeal he made at the start of his pontificate: “Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable. Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them.”²⁸

The obvious objection is that Iran won’t negotiate. On Sunday Tehran rejected a Qatari draft agreement, and a senior Iranian official told Reuters there would be no flexibility on the nuclear question. Iran wants the blockade lifted before talks begin; Washington wants nuclear concessions first.²⁹ Isn’t all this talk of dialogue a little naïve?

Leo saw that objection coming, and he takes it seriously. He asks for “a healthy realism that avoids both political idealism and cynicism.” Authentic realism, he writes, “starts by clearly identifying interests, fears, constraints and power dynamics,” and then “seeks viable paths for making peace more than a mere word, through credible institutions, verifiable guarantees, patient negotiations, conflict prevention and the protection of civilians.”³⁰ What he calls irresponsible is the opposite habit, a political “realism” in which the concern is “no longer the search for peace … but rather how and when to take military action.”³¹

How and when. That is a fair summary of this week’s coverage, my own reading of it included. Nearly every report asks when the strikes will come and what they will hit. Far fewer ask what a negotiated end would require, though the pieces are still on the board. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Iran is in contact with mediators about its own proposal.³² The Journal reports that Vice President Vance has reached out to one of Iran’s hard-liners, though the President denies sending him to open talks.³³ Patient diplomacy is slow and unglamorous, and it rarely wins a news cycle. It also hasn’t run out.

What I’d Watch

Watch whether anyone in the administration says publicly, before Tuesday, what a “short, intense” campaign is meant to achieve and how it would end. Watch whether the mediators’ channel stays open through the election. Watch whether Congress, which has been briefed, asks those questions out loud. And watch the price at the pump the week after the votes are counted, because ordinary families on both sides of the Gulf will pay for whatever is decided.

And, as always, pray. Pray for President Trump, Adm. Cooper and everyone who advises them, that they weigh this decision as men who will answer for it. Pray for the sailors, airmen and Marines in the region and for their families at home. Pray for the people of Iran, who live under a blockade and have no say in any of this, and for the leaders in Tehran, that they find the courage to make a real offer. And pray for the mediators, because the Lord promised them something no army can win: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

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This story turns on the Church’s call for a culture of negotiation: war is never inevitable, and dialogue and diplomacy must be the ordinary means of settling conflicts between nations.

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Notes

1. ↑ “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes on Iran After Midterms: Report,” Middle East Eye, October 28, 2026, middleeasteye.net; “US Warns Gulf States of Possible Short, Intense Iran War After Midterms: Report,” Anadolu Agency, October 28, 2026, aa.com.tr; “Top Admiral Briefs Trump on Iran War Efforts as Momentum Builds for More Attacks After Midterms: Report,” Yahoo News, October 29, 2026, yahoo.com.
2. ↑ Yahoo News, “Top Admiral Briefs Trump”; “Trump Briefed on Military Options for Iran,” HotAir, October 29, 2026, hotair.com; Anadolu Agency, “US Warns Gulf States.”
3. ↑ Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes”; Anadolu Agency, “US Warns Gulf States”; “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’ Regarding Potential Strikes on Iran After Midterm Elections,” Fox News, live updates, October 28-29, 2026, foxnews.com.
4. ↑ Anadolu Agency, “US Warns Gulf States”; Yahoo News, “Top Admiral Briefs Trump”; Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’”; Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes.”
5. ↑ Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’”; “Trump Threatens New Iran Strike: ‘We May Do Another Little Epic Fury, or They’ll Agree,’” Ynet News, October 23, 2026, ynetnews.com; Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes.”
6. ↑ Malcolm Ferguson, “‘Their Plan Is Insane’: Dem Senator Warns About Next Stage in Iran War,” The New Republic, October 29, 2026, newrepublic.com; Yahoo News, “Top Admiral Briefs Trump.”
7. ↑ Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’”; Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes.”
8. ↑ Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’.”
9. ↑ Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes”; Anadolu Agency, “US Warns Gulf States.”
10. ↑ Yahoo News, “Top Admiral Briefs Trump”; HotAir, “Trump Briefed on Military Options.”
11. ↑ Anadolu Agency, “US Warns Gulf States”; HotAir, “Trump Briefed on Military Options.”
12. ↑ Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes.”
13. ↑ Ynet News, “Trump Threatens New Iran Strike”; HotAir, “Trump Briefed on Military Options.”
14. ↑ Ferguson, “Their Plan Is Insane”; Yahoo News, “Top Admiral Briefs Trump.”
15. ↑ Pope John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: On Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity, and Liberty (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, April 11, 1963), no. 126, vatican.va.
16. ↑ Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, no. 127.
17. ↑ Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004), no. 497, vatican.va; Pope Leo XIV, Encyclical Letter Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, May 15, 2026), no. 219, vatican.va.
18. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 190.
19. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 195.
20. ↑ Anadolu Agency, “US Warns Gulf States.”
21. ↑ Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes”; Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’.”
22. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), no. 2308, vatican.va.
23. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2309.
24. ↑ Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes (December 7, 1965), no. 79, vatican.va.
25. ↑ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 40, a. 1, ad 3, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, in New Advent, newadvent.org.
26. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 192.
27. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 221.
28. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 222.
29. ↑ Middle East Eye, “US Warns Gulf of Intense Strikes”; Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’.”
30. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 218.
31. ↑ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 205.
32. ↑ Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’.”
33. ↑ HotAir, “Trump Briefed on Military Options”; Fox News, “Trump Says ‘Anything’s Possible’.”

Books Cited

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• Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (Doubleday / Image, 2003)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Latin-English edition, Complete Set (Aquinas Institute / Emmaus Academic, 2012)