(RNS) — As Americans hotly debate the Iran war, many examine the political and economic consequences, while others consider the war from an ethical and moral perspective. For pacifists, the answer is simple: The war is wrong because all wars are wrong. For political realists, the answer is also simple: Might makes right. If you have the power, you can do whatever you want.

But there is also a long tradition of Christian theologians examining individual wars to determine if they are just or not, from St. Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to modern leaders. The result is the just war theory, used to justify or condemn individual wars.

No one has used this theory to examine the Iran war better than Cardinal Robert McElroy, the archbishop of Washington who has doctorates in both political science from Stanford University and in moral theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. At Stanford, his dissertation was titled “Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Moral Norms in International Affairs.”

In an interview with his diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Standard, earlier this month, the cardinal listed the six criteria for a just war:

1. Just cause: The war must be undertaken in defense against an attack that is grave and certain on a nation, its allies or a defenseless human community.
2. The legitimate authority in the country contemplating war must declare war.
3. The country goes to war with right intention, namely to redress the specific just cause and restore peace.
4. War is the last resort to repel the aggression.
5. The expected destruction from the war must not outweigh the expected good.
6. There is a reasonable hope of success.

For a war to be just, it must fulfill each criteria. But McElroy said the Iran war failed to satisfy at least three of these requirements.

First, he explained, “The criterion of just cause is not met because our country was not responding to an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran.” 

The administration argues it waged a preventive war to stop Iran from attacking Israel and/or the United States. But quoting Pope Benedict XVI, McElroy said, “Catholic teaching does not support preventative war, i.e., a war justified by speculation about events in the future.” If wars could be justified by speculation, then there would be no real limits on going to war.

Second, “The criterion of right intention is not met in our country’s decision to attack Iran,” he continued. “One of the most worrying elements of these first days of the war in Iran is that our goals and intentions are absolutely unclear, ranging from the destruction of Iran’s conventional and nuclear weapons potential to the overthrow of its regime to the establishment of a democratic government to unconditional surrender. You cannot satisfy the just war tradition’s criterion of right intention if you do not have a clear intention.”

“Finally,” he concluded, “our current war effort does not meet Catholic just war teaching because it is far from clear that the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done.” We are seeing this already with the deaths and destruction caused by the war, as well as the economic consequences.

There is no doubt in the cardinal’s mind: The Iran war does not meet the criteria of a just war.

The just war theory requires not only that the war be just but that it also be waged with just means. The theory forbids the direct targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. And when military targets are hit, the collateral damage to civilians should be limited. Thus, even though World War II was a defensive and just war, the firebombing of Dresden and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities were immoral because they targeted civilians. That our adversaries use immoral means does not justify our doing the same.

Let’s pretend for a moment that the Iran war is just. Are the U.S. and Israel using just means?

Targeting military assets, such as missiles, drones, military planes, naval ships, military bases and air defense systems would be legitimate targets in a just war. Destroying factories and other facilities for making weapons, including nuclear weapons, would also be legitimate.

Going beyond these targets raises serious questions, however. Clearly, the targeting of schools and hospitals is off limits. Nor is it ethical to “bomb them back to the Stone Age,” as was once said by Curtis LeMay, a U.S. Air Force general, during the Vietnam War.

Targeting civilian infrastructure should be limited. And just because military bases use electricity does not legitimize wiping out a nation’s electric power production. And just because soldiers eat does not legitimize blocking food supplies to starve a nation into submission.

Often, attacks on civilians are justified by asserting that the real targets were combatants nearby. But the just war theory says that collateral damage to civilians must be limited even in a just war. Clearly, blowing up an apartment building to kill one enemy combatant is not justified.

The U.S. military recognizes these moral limits in its rules of engagement, although it is debatable whether the rules are adequate or strictly followed. There is no question that enemy combatants will attempt to hide among civilians, but this tactic does not legitimize mass civilian casualties.

Artificial intelligence is supposed to make targeting more accurate and reduce civilian casualties. The military is not being transparent on when AI has been used in the Iran war and how good a job it has done. For example, was it involved in the targeting of an Iranian school, where 175 people, many of them children, were killed at the beginning of the war?

Outside experts warn that the error rate for AI is still high. Including humans in the loop does not solve the problem because studies show that humans too often presume the information they get from AI is accurate. AI currently enables the military to make decisions faster — not more accurately.

All this considered, the Iran war is an unjust war being waged with unjust means. It needs to stop. And when the war is over, Congress needs to do a through investigation of how the war started and how it was waged.