The present threat to Iran and the obligation to resist nuclear violence
By Rod Benson
The evidence for renewed war
The danger of renewed attacks on Iran demands both urgent opposition to escalation and precision about the evidence. Public reporting indicates preparations for a possible new campaign, but does not establish a decision to use nuclear weapons against Pickaxe Mountain. Iranian civilians should not have to depend for their safety on the restraint of leaders discussing further destruction, and concern for their lives does not require treating an unverified allegation as fact.
In a social media post on 1 November US time, Tucker Carlson alleged that Benjamin Netanyahu was pressing Donald Trump daily for a nuclear strike and suggested a decision could come by 7 November. His account rested on unnamed sources and an argument about the limitations of conventional bombs. Multiple reports repeating that account do not constitute independent corroboration. As of 3 November, a responsible Christian peace witness must oppose the real danger of escalation while stating clearly that the alleged nuclear countdown remains unsubstantiated.
Trump’s own statements need to be read with equal care. In his Newsmax interview of 15 October, reported by Reuters the following day, he said: “No, I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to.” On 31 October, speaking at Mar-a-Lago, he identified Pickaxe Mountain among remaining Iranian sites and said such targets could be dealt with in “10 minutes”. Those remarks confirm that he was publicly discussing further attacks; they neither identify a nuclear weapon nor demonstrate that his claim about speed is militarily realistic.
Trump’s earlier rejection of nuclear use is relevant evidence of his stated position, although no presidential statement can guarantee a future decision. There is no publicly confirmed presidential deadline for deciding on nuclear use.
Why the mountain matters
Pickaxe Mountain is an underground installation near the Natanz nuclear complex in central Iran. Iran has described it as a centrifuge production and assembly facility; reported Israeli intelligence assessments raise the possibility of a different use. The sources examined do not independently establish the site’s current internal activities. A September 2026 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) documented substantial construction and reinforcement but could not substantiate claims that centrifuges had been moved inside. Its observations suggested that the facility might not yet be capable of enrichment.
Separately, the Institute for Science and International Security assessed in September that blocked access routes indicated a facility not then operating. These dated assessments cannot establish its November status. Crucially, evidence of construction or equipment storage is not proof of uranium enrichment, and enrichment itself is not proof that a nuclear weapon is being manufactured. The distinction matters: uncertainty about concealed activity warrants effective verification but cannot itself establish an imminent weapons threat.
Published estimates place parts of the complex approximately 80–100 metres underground, although its internal layout is not publicly established. The depth and geology pose a serious challenge to conventional weapons. They do not establish Carlson’s categorical assertion that a nuclear strike is the only military option. CSIS distinguishes destroying the facility from degrading or temporarily disabling it; neither outcome can be confidently predicted from public imagery alone. The inability to guarantee a target’s destruction supplies neither a legal justification nor a moral entitlement to use a more destructive weapon. Inspection arrangements, monitoring and negotiations remain relevant precisely because force cannot reliably remove every source of nuclear risk. Destroying a facility would not necessarily eliminate the knowledge, political incentives or technical capacity behind a nuclear program.
Preparations and warnings across the region
The strongest recent reporting concerns preparations for renewed hostilities. The Wall Street Journal reported on 2 November that Trump was considering a substantial offensive against Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites, while Netanyahu was pressing for action after the American midterm elections. The same report said Trump had not decided to proceed and wanted diplomacy to have more time. Accounts of the Journal’s reporting also describe airport security drills in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and some energy-conference attendees shortening visits to Abu Dhabi on government advice. Such precautions indicate serious concern about escalation and retaliation. They do not identify the weapons Washington might employ, and preparations to protect airports or economic infrastructure cannot be treated as evidence of a nuclear attack plan.
A further warning came from U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, whose office published remarks delivered at the Middle East Institute on 28 October. Recalling closed briefings about a possible resumption of military operations, he said: “their plan is insane”. His public explanation concerned the danger of further escalation and reported proposals to attack civilian infrastructure. That is a significant criticism by a legislator with access to information unavailable to the public, but it remains his assessment of a plan whose full details he did not disclose. Nothing in those published remarks confirms nuclear targeting, nuclear readiness or Carlson’s alleged deadline. His testimony strengthens the case for scrutiny of renewed operations without substantiating Carlson’s separate allegation.
Limited American strikes on Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz were also reported by the Associated Press on 2 November US time, following what a US official described as Iranian missile threats to American assets. The reported action was narrower than a return to full-scale war, while mediation continued. Nevertheless, limited exchanges can widen through retaliation, miscalculation and pressure to demonstrate resolve. The coexistence of military action and diplomacy makes the situation dangerous without making its outcome predetermined. Governments have a responsibility to preserve channels for agreement and to explain the purpose, limits and civilian consequences of any proposed campaign. The distinction between a nuclear target and a nuclear weapon is especially important. Attacking a site associated with a nuclear program does not by itself mean deploying a nuclear bomb.
The political timing and the limits of coercion
Electoral politics provide context, although they cannot establish private motives. Israel’s 27 October election left Netanyahu’s bloc with 53 seats, short of the 61 required for a parliamentary majority. That result creates pressure and uncertainty; it does not prove Carlson’s claim that only Trump can save Netanyahu’s premiership or that renewed war is being pursued to avoid imprisonment. The Financial Times reported that preparations for Israeli strikes around 10 October were halted because Trump opposed renewed fighting before the U.S. midterms; Netanyahu denied that account. Domestic political incentives may influence decisions about war, but an inconclusive election and disputed reporting are insufficient grounds for asserting a particular leader’s concealed purpose.
The strategic argument for renewed strikes is that coercion might impede a future Iranian nuclear breakthrough. An assessment of that argument must ask how long any disruption would last, what independent evidence would establish success and how further escalation would be prevented. Bombing could also strengthen arguments for acquiring a deterrent and weaken incentives to cooperate with inspectors; these are risks, rather than predetermined outcomes. CSIS cautions that repeated attacks on nuclear infrastructure are unsustainable.
A policy that concentrates on destroying underground chambers can therefore obscure the harder question of how to secure lasting constraints on nuclear activity. Nuclear knowledge cannot simply be bombed out of existence. An enduring settlement would need reliable information about nuclear material and activities, inspection access and commitments that remain credible after an immediate military crisis has passed.
The human consequences of escalation
A nuclear detonation against a deeply buried target could produce severe blast effects and dangerous radioactive fallout. Nuclear earth-penetrating weapons should not be imagined as devices whose destructive consequences remain neatly confined below ground. National Academies research documents the humanitarian hazards and the importance of yield, detonation conditions and weather in determining their extent. The International Committee of the Red Cross also warns that fallout can cross borders and that an adequate humanitarian response to nuclear use in populated areas would be extraordinarily difficult. It is therefore misleading to rank political repercussions above physical harm as though the latter were necessarily containable. A nuclear strike could combine immediate civilian suffering with environmental damage and a lasting deterioration of international restraint.
Ryan Costello of the National Iranian American Council has warned that, depending on yield and wind direction, a radioactive plume could travel hundreds of miles and reach population centres. This is a conditional warning about a recognised hazard, not a forecast of an established attack scenario. Carlson’s assertion that Gulf drinking water serving 100 million people would be poisoned goes further than the publicly supplied evidence: no accompanying atmospheric, marine or water-supply modelling substantiates that precise outcome. Dangerous fallout is a credible concern; its geographical reach, concentration and effects on drinking water require specific assessment. The lack of such a forecast is a reason to avoid precise claims, not a reason to discount the hazard.
Nuclear use would also break the record of non-use in warfare since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Other governments might infer that nuclear possession offers protection against coercion, or that the restraint observed by nuclear powers is becoming less reliable. Neither response is inevitable, but both would complicate efforts to prevent proliferation. Costello’s question about whether Russia would then exercise restraint in Ukraine illustrates this political risk; it does not demonstrate that another nuclear attack or world war would necessarily follow. The chief concern is that one government’s decision could weaken expectations of restraint elsewhere, leaving populations with less protection against future nuclear threats. That possibility should be evaluated alongside the immediate humanitarian consequences, without implying that political damage can be calculated more confidently than physical harm.
Law and accountability
The legal questions begin before any choice of weapon. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against another state’s territorial integrity or political independence. The Charter also provides for Security Council enforcement action and recognises individual or collective self-defence under Article 51. Describing a proposed attack as necessary for non-proliferation does not, by itself, establish a lawful basis for force. Any claim of self-defence must be assessed against the relevant facts and applicable law, rather than inferred from the existence of a fortified installation. Equally, a domestic electoral timetable cannot supply an international legal justification for military action. The public material examined here is insufficient to adjudicate every possible operational scenario, but it is sufficient to reject the assumption that a troubling nuclear capability automatically authorises preventive war.
The conduct of an attack is a separate legal question. International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks and attacks expected to cause excessive incidental civilian harm relative to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. All feasible precautions must be taken. Infrastructure serving both civilian and military functions may qualify as a military objective only where the legal criteria are met; that status does not remove the other protections. A power plant, water system or transport link cannot be treated as expendable merely because disabling it might pressure a government. The ICRC stresses that foreseeable civilian harm can extend beyond an initial explosion through disruption of essential services. Conventional bombing therefore requires rigorous scrutiny even if nuclear weapons are excluded. Iranian, Israeli and American forces are bound by the applicable rules alike.
In its 1996 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice concluded that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of armed conflict, particularly international humanitarian law. It did not definitively resolve legality in the exceptional case of self-defence where a state’s very survival was at stake, and its opinion must not be misrepresented as a categorical judicial prohibition in every conceivable circumstance. The Court nevertheless affirmed the obligation to pursue negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. The later Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons explicitly prohibits use and threat of use for states parties, although it does not impose that treaty’s obligations on non-parties such as the United States. These legal distinctions preclude presenting the Court’s opinion as an absolute prohibition in every conceivable case, or treating its narrow unresolved question as a general licence for nuclear use.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty also joins restraint to verification. Articles II and III set out non-acquisition and safeguards obligations for non-nuclear-weapon states parties; Article IV recognises peaceful nuclear activity in conformity with the treaty, while Article VI commits all parties to good-faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament. These provisions do not make every disputed enrichment activity lawful, nor do they create a general permission for nuclear-armed states to attack suspected facilities. An effective settlement must require credible Iranian cooperation with verification, while recognising that commitments to restraint and disarmament apply beyond Iran. Treating non-proliferation solely as a demand imposed on weaker states would neglect the reciprocal obligations on which the treaty’s political credibility depends.
The double standard at the centre of the crisis
A state cannot credibly defend humanity against nuclear danger while asserting its own freedom to unleash that danger upon others. The contradiction is ethical as well as diplomatic. If nuclear weapons warrant exceptional restraint because of their potentially indiscriminate, transboundary and catastrophic effects, that principle cannot depend on the nationality or presumed virtue of the government considering their use. Superior military power creates greater responsibilities of restraint. This argument applies consistently to Washington and every other nuclear-armed state; it also requires serious measures to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Non-proliferation and disarmament serve the same human interest. A system that presents nuclear privilege as permanent while demanding permanent abstention from others risks weakening the political consent on which durable restraint depends.
Christian pacifism goes further than rejecting a particular weapon. It challenges the resort to war and the assumption that security can finally be secured through the capacity to destroy an adversary. Its account of human worth begins with creation in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27), and its practice is shaped by Jesus’ command to love enemies (Mt 5:44–48), his rejection of the sword at his arrest (Mt 26:52), and Paul’s instruction not to repay evil with evil (Rom 12:17–21). Christians interpret these texts differently; the pacifist reading advanced here understands them as a call to active nonviolence, including protection of threatened neighbours and resistance to oppression. It can acknowledge threats to Israel and condemn abuses by Iranian authorities without endorsing war against the Iranian people. Rejecting nuclear use is thus part of a larger commitment to seek security through justice, truthful negotiation and protection of life.
Deep concern for the Iranian people must shape this discussion from its beginning, including how we report threats, assess military claims and imagine security. Iranians are not interchangeable with the state that governs them, and their safety must not be made conditional on their ability to change its policies. Families living with the fear of further bombardment, and people already vulnerable to repression or deprivation, are neighbours with claims upon our concern. Their rights to safety, political freedom and a liveable future do not depend on foreign approval of their government. Equally, the lives of Israelis, Gulf residents and Americans stationed in the region cannot be dismissed; solidarity with one population is not a licence to ignore the vulnerability of another.
The Uniting Church in Australia’s March 2026 public appeal for peace explicitly emphasised the protection of civilians, dialogue, respect for international law and the rejection of security built on the suffering of vulnerable peoples, recalling the testimony of Indigenous and Pacific communities marked by nuclear testing and militarisation. That is a fitting Australian Christian contribution to the present debate.
What peace now requires
The immediate diplomatic objective should be an agreement that reduces the chance of renewed combat while making nuclear activities more verifiable. That requires negotiated access for inspectors, a credible accounting of nuclear material, clear arrangements for resolving disputes and a sequence of reciprocal steps whose fulfilment can be checked. Reciprocity could include staged sanctions relief matched to verified compliance, together with explicit security commitments. These are proposed requirements for a durable settlement, not a claim that an agreement with these terms has already been reached. Commitments to protect civilians and essential infrastructure should operate immediately, rather than wait for a comprehensive nuclear accord. Australia should press for de-escalation, humanitarian access and sustained mediation, while asking what evidence and legal basis support any proposed attack. Scrutiny of Iranian nuclear activity and opposition to military escalation are compatible responsibilities.
Churches should translate that position into public advocacy and practical solidarity: supporting affected communities, listening to Iranian voices, resisting the dehumanisation of adversaries and pressing elected representatives for restraint. Assistance and concern must extend to civilians throughout the region. Such work should neither excuse repression in Iran nor depend on an unverified nuclear countdown. The limits of force at Pickaxe Mountain expose a choice about political purpose: whether security will be measured by an adversary’s destruction or by the possibility of people living without the threat of annihilation.
A Christian response should insist that Iranian lives, and the lives of their neighbours, are ends in themselves. That conviction gives the demand for peace its proper urgency and discipline.
Rev Dr Rod Benson lives in Sydney and writes about a range of topics from books and local history to food, faith, philosophy, ethics, research skills, and everyday life. Away from the keyboard, he enjoys cooking for friends, walking in the Australian bush, exploring a beach, discovering new restaurants, and reading philosophy, fiction and poetry. He is married to Emma and is minister of North Rocks Community Church, a Uniting Church congregation.
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Image source: Aljazeera
