We are at war in the Middle East. Again.

Albert Einstein famously said, after the advent of the nuclear weapons that his genius helped make possible, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, save our modes of thinking. And we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Human nature abides, is what Einstein understood, and it cannot be escaped or wished away.

The Iranian regime of the ayatollahs and their government thugs and religious henchmen is an odious and grotesquely corrupt oppressor of a proud and ancient people. This theocracy has as its established, stated, and formal policy the “destruction” and “annihilation” of the state of Israel and, inevitably, of its people.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini has referred to Israel as “a cancerous tumor” that “will be uprooted and destroyed.” Top generals have called for “the full annihilation of Israel” and declared that it “must be wiped off the map.”

Think about that. That’s not normal. It’s vicious. And it is a fact of life Israelis must reckon with every day. And not just Israelis. Jews around the world—from South America to Europe to India and beyond—have been killed in terrorist attacks launched by this murderous tyranny and its client militias.

Whatever you think of the policies of the state of Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially in Gaza, this is an intolerable situation for the people of Israel—and for the wider world. Iran under the ayatollahs has been a hard problem for American presidents of both parties for good reason. Many of the top leaders in Tehran are men full of hatred for Jews and lunatic ideas about “annihilating” them. For decades they have been spending billions—ignoring the needs of their people—to develop nuclear weapons that could achieve their sick dream.

This is what Einstein foresaw. Zealots, kleptocrats, gangsters and madmen—in the long sweep of the years, they’ll all sooner or later stand a fair chance of having a finger on a nuclear trigger. Human nature and the Bomb are forever linked.

President Trump’s decision to enter the war against Iran in order to cripple or destroy its nuclear weapons programs must be seen in this light. Like his predecessors going back decades, he faced the hard problem of Iran and its nuclear ambitions. He has chosen war to solve it, essentially claiming a preemptive attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities is justified both strategically and legally.

In my judgment, there was no imminent threat to the United States justifying this attack, and I’d like to see presidential war powers returned to a proper constitutional balance. But military actions like this one are, in fact, justified or condemned retrospectively, by the their success or failure. That’s just how history works. We are now at war, and so I hope and pray that the conflict, and our involvement in it, is swift and successful.

We are grateful for the courage, skill and intrepidity of our US armed forces in this attack. First reports describe a complex and stunningly executed operation, with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine telling reporters that no Iranian air-defense shots were fired, and no Iranian planes took off, to respond to this massive attack. That is a signal accomplishment of arms.

But war has its own iron logic. As General James Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense, said, “No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.”

So now the ayatollahs and their generals must choose. They are being urged by US officials, including President Trump, to stand down. But that’s not how wars, or bar fights, work. People hit back. And then we will have to count on President Trump‘s character, levelheadedness, and wisdom. For me, that is a very long bet, human nature and his nature being what they are.

War is the worst thing people do. I’ve seen it over the years, from Central America in the 1980s, to Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Central African Republic, and Ukraine in this century. I’ve seen enough of it, more than enough. But none of us have seen the end of it.

Let Pope Leo XIV, my fellow native-born Chicagoan, have the last word.

“Today, more than ever, humanity cries out and pleads for peace,” the pope said in his weekly Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square.

“War does not solve problems,” he continued. “On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples – wounds that take generations to heal. No military victory can ever compensate for a mother’s pain, a child’s fear, or a stolen future.

“Let diplomacy silence the weapons! Let nations shape their future with works of peace, not through violence and bloody conflicts!“

Amen, I say.