The war against Iran does not appear to be genuinely defensive against an imminent threat; it is rather undertaken to prevent a threat that might, at some time in the future, materialize, and is therefore a “war of choice.” Natural law just war theory acknowledges no such category: justified warfare is always a matter of necessity. And the natural law tradition acknowledges only two forms of justified killing of a leader such as Ayatollah Khamenei: one is as a form of punishment carried out by those with appropriate authority; the other is as a form of self-defense or defense of another. This war does not seem to be carried out with anything like right intentions.
