Lebanon and the Geography of Unfinished Ambition

By Kurniawan Arif Maspul

April 14, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by campsmum/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 2.0

Lebanon sits today not merely at the edge of war, but at the fault line of an idea—an idea that has outlived empires, outpaced diplomacy, and repeatedly redrawn the moral boundaries of international order. The language of ‘security’ has long framed Israel’s military actions, yet beneath it lingers a far older and more combustible narrative: the elastic geography of ‘Greater Israel’, a concept that, whether rhetorical or operational, continues to reverberate across the Levant with devastating human consequence.

To treat the current escalation along the Lebanon–Israel frontier as episodic is to misunderstand its deeper architecture. The historical record tells a far more unsettling story. Israel’s incursions into Lebanon in 1978 and 1982, culminating in an occupation that lasted until 2000, were not isolated security operations but formative events that reshaped Lebanon’s political and social terrain. Hezbollah itself emerged in this crucible—not as a primordial aggressor, but as a product of occupation and abandonment. That distinction matters, not as justification, but as diagnosis.

There is a persistent temptation in global policymaking circles to compress this history into a binary: state versus militia, order versus terror. Yet such simplifications collapse under empirical scrutiny. The 2006 war offers a stark case. Hezbollah’s rocket fire killed 43 Israeli civilians, a clear violation of international humanitarian law. Israel’s response, however, killed over a thousand Lebanese civilians and displaced nearly a million people while devastating critical infrastructure.

The asymmetry was not merely military; it was civilisational in its impact. Entire communities were reduced to debris, their reconstruction still incomplete two decades on.

Israel’s latest reported 10-minute barrage over Beirut—deploying around 160 missiles across densely populated civilian areas and killing more than 250 people—cannot be rationalised by collapsing an entire nation into a single armed group; such framing is not strategy, it is moral collapse. To equate Lebanon with Hezbollah to legitimise indiscriminate force is a narrative that shatters international law, corrodes global conscience, and reinforces a devastating historical pattern of destruction that the world can no longer afford to normalise.

Decades after the bombs fall silent, Lebanon’s shattered streets still whisper a brutal truth: reconstruction has become a theatre of promises unkept, where billions pledged dissolve into paralysis, leaving ruins to harden into a permanent architecture of abandonment.

This cycle—provocation, retaliation, devastation—has become the grammar of the conflict. And yet, it is sustained not only by immediate threats but by long-range ideological horizons. The notion of Greater Israel, rooted in biblical interpretations of territory stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, has never been formalised as official state policy. Still, its echoes are audible in contemporary political discourse. Senior Israeli figures have, at times, gestured toward expansive territorial visions, including assertions of enduring sovereignty over lands far beyond internationally recognised borders.

Such rhetoric may be dismissed as fringe or symbolic, yet in a region where words often precede movement, symbolism acquires material weight.

For Lebanon, this is not abstract theology. It is lived vulnerability. A state already hollowed out by economic collapse, institutional fragility, and sectarian fragmentation finds itself unable to monopolise the instruments of war or peace. Surveys indicate that more Lebanese prioritise ending foreign occupation than disarming Hezbollah. This inversion of conventional Western policy priorities reveals a deeper truth: sovereignty, in Lebanon, is experienced as something externally violated before it is internally contested.

International law, meanwhile, offers clarity that politics avoids. The annexation of territory by force remains unequivocally prohibited. UN Security Council resolutions have repeatedly declared Israeli annexations—whether in the Golan Heights or East Jerusalem—’null and void’. Recent UN reporting warns of accelerated settlement expansion and the displacement of over 36,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, describing patterns that may amount to forcible transfer. These are not marginal allegations; they strike at the heart of the post-1945 international legal order.

Comparative history sharpens the stakes. Irredentist visions have a long and troubled lineage—from Greater Serbia in the Balkans to the expansionist doctrines of early 20th-century Europe. Each case demonstrates how mythologised geography can legitimise violence, particularly when fused with existential narratives. In the Israeli–Lebanese context, the fusion is especially potent: a technologically superior state confronting a deeply embedded non-state actor, each convinced of its defensive necessity, each reinforcing the other’s permanence.

In addition, the approval of 34 new settlements in April—the largest single expansion on record—alongside plans for 15 permanent military bases near Lebanon’s border, signals not a drift but a deliberate architecture of annexation that is tightening its grip across Palestinian land while casting an ever-lengthening shadow of instability over the entire region.

What emerges is not a conventional war but a self-sustaining ecosystem of conflict. Israeli military doctrine, grounded in deterrence and overwhelming force, often produces tactical gains but strategic stagnation. Hezbollah, for its part, thrives in this environment of perpetual resistance, drawing legitimacy from each incursion and each civilian casualty. As it’s noted, Israel in 2006 was ‘fought to a standstill’ by a guerrilla force despite overwhelming superiority. The lesson was not lost on either side.

The humanitarian cost, however, remains the most damning indictment. Civilians—Israeli and Lebanese alike—are not collateral to this conflict; they are its primary victims. Images of displaced families in Beirut mirror those from northern Israel’s bomb shelters. International humanitarian law is violated not in abstraction but in homes, schools, and hospitals. Each breach erodes not only lives but norms, weakening the already fragile architecture of global governance.

From the scarred valleys of Kashmir to the fractured cities of Somalia, the same tragic script unfolds—where unresolved grievances, external interference, and militarised identities calcify conflict into a generational inheritance rather than a temporary crisis.

For global policymakers—from Brussels to Riyadh, from Washington to Jakarta—the implications cut far deeper than diplomatic ritual or carefully worded communiqués. This conflict has become a crucible in which the credibility of the entire international system is being quietly, but relentlessly, tested. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the United Nations, and even emerging blocs of the Global South now find themselves confronting not just a regional crisis, but a systemic fracture: a world order that appears selective in its morality and inconsistent in its enforcement.

When violations of international law are condemned in one theatre yet rationalised in another, the result is not balance—it is erosion. Trust dissolves. Legitimacy thins. And into that vacuum step alternative narratives, alliances, and doctrines that challenge the very foundations of multilateralism.

A more imaginative global response is no longer optional—it is urgent. What if the GCC, leveraging its economic weight, spearheaded a conditional reconstruction compact for Lebanon tied to sovereignty restoration and civilian protection benchmarks? What if the OIC moved beyond declaratory politics to establish an independent legal observatory documenting violations across all actors, state and non-state alike, restoring a sense of moral symmetry?

What if a new transregional contact group—bridging Europe, the Arab world, and Southeast Asia—reframed the conflict not as a zero-sum security dilemma but as a shared humanitarian emergency demanding enforceable guarantees? These are not utopian gestures; they are necessary disruptions to a diplomatic status quo that has normalised recurrence over resolution. Because without bold, collective reimagination, the risk is not just another war in Lebanon—it is the quiet unravelling of the rules meant to prevent all wars.

A more honest reckoning begins with acknowledging a shifting and deeply unsettling reality: the language of annexation is no longer whispered at the fringes but increasingly voiced in the open, recasting Israel not only as a state acting out of security anxiety but as one projecting territorial ambition that reverberates as a regional threat. Statements invoking expanded sovereignty—whether gradual or aspirational—do not land in a vacuum; they echo across Beirut, Damascus, Amman, and beyond as signals of a future in which borders are negotiable by force rather than law.

In such an atmosphere, Hezbollah’s militarisation cannot be disentangled from the perception—rightly or wrongly—of an encroaching project that renders disarmament synonymous with vulnerability. Yet this does not absolve the cycle; it deepens the tragedy. Security fears on one side and expansionist rhetoric on the other begin to feed a single, combustible narrative, where each justifies the excesses of the next.

What emerges is not balance, but a tightening spiral—one where the mere articulation of annexation reshapes the strategic imagination of the region, hardens positions, and transforms latent tension into an ever-present spectre of war.

Policy responses, therefore, must move beyond the reactive. Strengthening Lebanese state institutions is not an abstract goal but a strategic necessity. A government capable of delivering services and asserting authority would gradually undercut the parallel legitimacy structures on which Hezbollah relies. Equally, meaningful constraints on settlement expansion and annexation are essential to restoring any credibility to a rules-based order.

Inside Lebanon, the state itself trembles under the weight of its divisions, where sectarian fault lines do not merely weaken governance but fracture the very idea of sovereignty into competing, paralysing loyalties.

Diplomatically, a reinvigorated multilateral framework is indispensable. UNIFIL’s limited mandate illustrates the gap between aspiration and enforcement. Without stronger mechanisms—whether through expanded peacekeeping authorities or coordinated economic leverage—resolutions will continue to function as symbolic gestures rather than instruments of change.

There is, ultimately, a deeper reckoning required. The persistence of maximalist territorial visions—whether framed as divine promise or strategic necessity—stands in direct tension with a world organised around sovereign equality. As long as such visions remain politically viable, the risk of perpetual conflict endures.

Lebanon’s tragedy is not simply that it lies next to a powerful neighbour. It is that it has become the arena in which competing histories, identities, and ambitions are violently negotiated. The question for the international community is whether it will continue to manage the symptoms or confront the underlying ideologies that make such suffering recurrent.

In that choice lies the difference between another ceasefire and a genuine, if distant, peace.Email

Kurniawan Arif Maspul

Kurniawan Arif Maspul is a researcher and interdisciplinary writer focusing on Islamic diplomacy and Southeast Asian political thought. He holds an MEd in Advanced Teaching, an MBA and an MA in Islamic Studies and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Islamic Banking and Finance at Al-Madinah International University in Malaysia.

 

Kurdish Women’s Struggle For Gender Equality – And Much Else Besides

For a century, Kurdish women have been at the forefront of the struggle against patriarchal and state oppression. They continue to push boundaries and defend their gains against mounting pressure.

By Nazand Begikhani

April 12, 2026

Source: Le Monde Diplomatique

Yanar Mohammed speaking at a conference in Berlin in 2013.

On 2 March this year, Yanar Mohammed, a prominent feminist figure in Iraq, was shot dead outside her home by two gunmen – the latest in a string of activists killed, likely by units of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, Shia militias (1). A tireless advocate for gender equality, she had spent years campaigning against honour crimes, early and forced marriages, and all forms of violence against women. Based on women’s rights media outlet, such as Newjin, Yanar’s assassination is part of an alarming escalation in gender-based violence currently affecting Iraq and several other countries across the Middle East.

This intensification of violence against women cannot be separated from the context of war, instability and political fragmentation ravaging the region. Kurdistan, divided among four nation-states in the Middle East, remains particularly vulnerable despite a century-long intersectional struggle against multiple forms of patriarchal and state oppression. While Kurdish women are widely recognised for their decisive role in the fight against ISIS – particularly within the fighting forces in Syria and Iraq – they have also remained deeply committed to advancing women’s rights, equality and freedom in their societies.

Legal and institutional reforms in Iraqi Kurdistan

In Iraqi Kurdistan, since the uprising of 1991 women have played a central role in awareness campaigns against inequality and discriminatory practices rooted in certain social traditions and in the Baathist legal system, including the Iraqi Personal Status Law of 1959 and the Iraqi Penal Code number 111 of 1969. Thanks to their persistent mobilisation and determination, and the support of progressive figures within the regional government, Kurdistan achieved several important advances: the recognition of honour crimes as murders without mitigating circumstances, the restriction of polygamy in several jurisdictions, expanded rights to divorce and fairer provisions regarding child custody.

With the rise of cyber violence, the regional parliament – encouraged by a dynamic civil society and supported by reform-minded leaders – in 2008 passed Law No. 6 on Preventing the Misuse of New Information Technologies. The aim was to curb digital harassment, protect victims and ensure accountability for perpetrators. A year later, in 2009, the legal minimum quota for female parliamentarians was increased from 25% to 30% of the legislature.

Women in Kurdistan have also successfully mobilised political elites in support of women’s rights and broader social policies. This effort led to the institutionalisation of women’s issues through the creation of the Combatting Violence Against Women Directorate (2007), the High Council of Women’s Affairs (2011) and the Women’s Rights Monitoring Board (2012), headed at the time by Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. These initiatives resulted in the establishment of shelters for women at risk and training programmes for judges, law enforcement officers, social workers and government officials. In parallel, the Kurdistan Region encouraged the creation of gender studies centres to analyse these societal challenges, conduct research and produce evidence-based knowledge grounded in feminist and ethical approaches. In 2011 the regional parliament enacted Law No 8 combatting domestic violence, one of the most progressive legal frameworks of its kind in the region.

These reforms have largely remained confined to the Kurdistan Region. In the rest of Iraq where Yanar was particularly active, not only did similar legal progress fail to materialise, but in August 2024 the Iraqi Supreme Court ruled that some reforms passed by the Kurdistan parliament went against sharia law (2). Women saw the decision as a major setback. When the Iraqi parliament subsequently passed the Jaafari Personal Status Code in August 2025, Kurdish women mobilised strongly against it, arguing that the legislation discriminates against women and privileges men in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance and child guardianship. Yanar campaigned forcefully against the Al-Jaafari Law, arguing that it undermined the rights of women and girls while legitimising discriminatory, religious and tribal interpretations of marriage and women’s legal status.

In the context of the ongoing conflict and war, Hana Shwan – a journalist and prominent feminist figure in Iraqi Kurdistan, who visited women in shelters and prisons last week and whom I interviewed for this article – described how the conflict has acutely intensified uncertainty and fear among the most vulnerable women, particularly those in shelters and prisons, while simultaneously eroding her organisation’s ability to sustain its work in Sulaimaniya, near the border of Iran. Echoing Simone de Beauvoir, she emphasised that the conflict has not produced new inequalities so much as it has exposed and amplified entrenched gender discrimination, deepened structural injustices, and accelerated patterns of interpersonal violence. Natia Navrouzov, a Yazidi lawyer and head of the NGO Yazda based in Duhok with offices in Sinjar, underscored the compounded impact of conflict and violence in the Middle East in exacerbating mental health crises among affected communities. She noted that the ongoing bombardment across the Kurdistan Region has forced her organisation to suspend all field activities, further limiting access to already scarce psychosocial support services.

Despite the many obstacles impeding the these reforms’ implementation – particularly the rise of Islamist influence since the emergence of ISIS in 2014 – women in the Kurdistan region continue to push boundaries and defend their rights. Hana and Natia are two of the visible and courageous examples of this determination.

Women’s achievements in Syria

In Syrian Kurdistan, Rojava, women have also played a decisive role in defeating ISIS, notably during the battles of Raqqa and Kobane. Beyond the battlefield, they have been central to the governance of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) for nearly a decade. Women helped embed gender equality in political and social institutions and supported legal reforms that abolished polygamy, early marriage and certain inequalities in inheritance previously justified through religious interpretations. Under their influence, the co-presidency system – requiring that a man and a woman share political leadership – has become an established principle, not only in Syrian Kurdistan but also within some Kurdish political structures in Turkey.

These achievements are now under serious threat. The Syrian regime launched an offensive this January that resulted in massacres and the occupation of large parts of the Kurdish autonomous region. Nevertheless, women continue to mobilise to protect their political gains. Their vigilance is reinforced by concerns that their institutions may be absorbed into the Syrian governmental system under the agreement reached on 29 January between Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syrian president and a former jihadist, and the Syrian Democratic Forces led by General Mazloum Abdi.

Women’s concerns extend far beyond questions of equality and human rights; they are central to sustainable peacebuilding and long-term security. At a conference held on 2 March at the French Senate in Paris (organised by the Kurdish Institute of Paris), Kurdish journalist Ronahi Hassan from Rojava underscored this urgency, stating: ‘At a time when the region faces renewed instability and extremist threats, the preservation of decentralised governance and institutionalised gender representation is not only a matter of Kurdish rights, but a cornerstone of international security.’

Model of empowerment in Turkey

In Turkey, the Kurdish women’s movement has also made remarkable progress in advancing gender equality, particularly within political and military contexts. Emerging in response to widespread violence, systemic discrimination and the broader dynamics of the conflict with the Turkish state, Kurdish feminists have developed their own model of empowerment, introducing co-leadership systems within political parties and councils, and ensuring that women share decision-making equally with men. In military organisations associated with the feminist movement, women now occupy leadership positions and participate in strategic planning, challenging traditional gender hierarchies and social expectations.

Kurdish women have also confronted deeply rooted feudal and patriarchal norms within their society, promoting women’s autonomy and resisting domestic and community violence. Their initiative has included addressing gaps within the broader Turkish feminist movement, advocating for peace and intersectional approaches that recognise ethnic and political marginalisation. Its influence now extends beyond Kurdistan, inspiring similar initiatives across the wider Middle East (3).

Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement

In Iran, Kurdish women became the driving force behind the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (‘Woman, Life, Freedom’) movement following the killing of the Kurdish student Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. For many Kurds, this slogan has become a universal call for dignity and freedom. The movement quickly transcended ethnic boundaries within Iran and challenged the authority of the ruling regime, and went on to become a global symbol of resistance and emancipation. Sahar Bagheri, researcher at the IRIS laboratory in Paris, reflects on this struggle in Rojhelat (Kurdistan of Iran) saying: ‘The struggle of Kurdish women is fundamentally feminist, rooted in the defence of our bodily autonomy and our land as inseparable sites of resistance.’ She adds: ‘As Kurdish women, we remain steadfast in our commitment to Jin, Jiyan, Azadî, asserting ourselves as active political subjects. Our resistance challenges both patriarchal domination and colonial power, insisting that women’s liberation is inseparable from collective self-determination.’

The above examples show that Kurds are not ‘separatist militias’ seeking to challenge borders inherited from 20th-century colonial arrangements, as some recent narratives have suggested. On the contrary, they are well organised actors representing a significant potential for democratic progress and building societies grounded in freedom, equality and universal human rights. These principles stand in stark contrast to the ideological extremism and radical Islamist currents that have destabilised much of the Middle East since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nor should Kurds be reduced to a simplistic image of ‘brave warriors’. Instead the international community ought to recognise the values they strive to defend and implement whenever political space allows.

Yanar’s assassination is a stark reminder that democracy remains fragile and that the pursuit of emancipation can provoke new forms of repression and domination. In this context, recognising the strategic importance of women’s struggle for freedom, equality and human dignity is not just a symbolic gesture.Email

Nazand Begikhani

Nazand Begikhani is a poet and Vincent Wright Chair and Lecturer at Sciences Po, Paris.

 

Seoul’s missing $7.8bn central bank surplus

/ Greg Schneider - Unsplash

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By IntelliNews April 10, 2026

South Korea submitted a KRW26.2trillion ($19.2bn) "war supplementary budget" to the National Assembly that unusually omits surplus funds from the Bank of Korea (BoK), drawing fire from legislative watchdogs on April 9, Chosun Daily reports.

The decision to bypass the central bank’s net profits, which are typically used to bolster state spending or repay debt, marks a significant departure from fiscal norms established over the last two decades. While the government utilised these resources during the previous year's supplementary cycle, their exclusion from the current March 31 proposal has prompted warnings that the administration is "stockpiling ammunition" for a potential second intervention later this year.

The move has raised transparency concerns as the administration appears to be shielding a multi-billion dollar windfall from legislative oversight. By keeping the BoK surplus off the books, the government retains a massive liquid reserve that remains outside the immediate deliberative control of the National Assembly. This strategy represents a subtle but important shift in fiscal priority, moving away from debt reduction toward a state of high-readiness as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continue to threaten global energy prices and supply chains.

Budget office warnings

The National Assembly Budget Office voiced significant apprehension regarding the funding structure in its "Analysis of the First Additional Budget for 2026." Since 2008, the state has consistently integrated BoK surpluses or previous year carry-overs into supplementary spending plans. However, the current proposal differs from past cases in that excess BoK funds already deposited into the national treasury were not reflected in revenue adjustments.

The National Assembly Budget Office argued the approach fails to align with the intent of Article 17 of the National Finance Act, which stipulates that all income of a fiscal year shall be revenue and all expenditures shall be expenses. Sidestepping this protocol could fundamentally weaken the transparency and efficacy of how the nation manages its purse strings, the report suggested.

"The failure to utilise Bank of Korea surplus funds in this supplementary budget's resources raises concerns about undermining the transparency and efficiency of fiscal management," stated the National Assembly Budget Office on April 9. By withholding these funds from the revenue adjustment process, the government has essentially blocked the National Assembly from deliberating on how to use them—such as repaying additional government bonds or identifying new spending projects.

The scale of the withheld funds is substantial, totalling KRW10.705 trillion ($7.8bn) based on the central bank’s performance last year. This figure significantly overshot initial government projections of KRW6.4191 trillion ($4.34bn). According to Chosun Daily, a robust US dollar was the primary driver for this windfall, contributing an unexpected KRW3.4539 trillion ($2.34bn) to the final tally as the central bank’s foreign exchange-related earnings surged.

Despite having this capital physically present in the national accounts, the Ministry of Planning and Budget has chosen not to earmark it for the current KRW26.2 trillion ($17.72bn) package. In turn, this has led to accusations that the executive branch is effectively "hiding" money in its wallet. Under normal circumstances, these funds would be used to lower the national debt ratio, which has seen significant upward pressure recently. However, by keeping the surplus as a non-tax revenue "reserve," the government maintains a level of flexibility that bypasses the traditional democratic process of fiscal control.

Ministry discretion as tax fears grow

The Ministry of Planning and Budget defended the decision, maintaining that whether to adjust revenue based on BoK surplus funds is entirely at the government’s discretion. Officials pointed toward a volatile economic landscape and the "triple shock" of high interest rates, a weak KRW, and high energy prices as the primary reasons for their caution.

According to The Korea Economic Daily, the ministry is wary of potential tax revenue shortfalls later in the year as global market conditions shift. There is also lingering uncertainty regarding the collection of non-tax revenues, specifically the proceeds from the sale of NXC (the holding company of gaming giant Nexon) tax-in-kind shares. The government acquired these shares as part of an inheritance tax settlement, but the success of such a high-stakes divestment remains speculative. If these shares fail to sell at the anticipated valuation or within the desired timeframe, the government will face a significant budget hole. Consequently, the central bank surplus is being framed by the ministry as a vital "emergency buffer" to protect the state against these multi-faceted financial risks.

Beyond the immediate concerns of tax shortfalls, there is a growing consensus among observers that the administration is "stockpiling ammunition." There are also strong indications that the March 31 budget might not be the last intervention for the year. High-ranking officials have hinted that geopolitical instability in the Middle East, specifically the impact of the conflict involving Iran, could necessitate further fiscal expansion to manage surging oil prices and domestic inflation.

Hong Ik-pyo, Cheong Wa Dae Senior Secretary for Political Affairs, stated after the war supplementary budget was submitted that a second supplementary budget may be needed in 2H26 if the war in the Middle East continues. This sentiment was echoed by Park Hong-keun, the Minister of Planning and Budget, who noted on April 7 that a second additional budget remains a distinct possibility. According to reports from The Straits Times, this expansionary stance marks a hallmark of the current administration’s "pre-emptive response" strategy to protect consumers from the rising cost of living.

A shift from debt reduction to crisis readiness

This strategy represents a shift in fiscal priority. Usually, excess funds are used to pay down national debt, which recently topped $800bn following massive stimulus pushes. However, a researcher from a government-funded research institute noted that the government currently views the BoK surplus as "money already in its wallet." Rather than using these funds to lower the national debt ratio—which Trading Economics models suggest could trend around 49.3% of GDP—the government appears prioritised on maintaining immediate liquidity to handle future shocks.

While this provides the government with a flexible "war chest," it circumvents the traditional democratic process of fiscal control. The National Assembly Budget Office remains firm in its stance that these funds should have been integrated into the formal review process. By doing so, the legislature could have determined if the KRW10.705 trillion ($7.24bn) would be better spent on immediate relief or if it truly needed to be held in reserve.

As the Middle East crisis continues to influence global energy prices and supply chains, the South Korean government’s fiscal conservatism—or strategic hoarding, depending on the perspective—will remain a point of intense political friction. The tension between the executive’s need for "emergency ammunition" and the legislature’s demand for "fiscal transparency" defines the current state of Korea’s 2026 economic policy. For now, the surplus remains untouched, waiting for a potential second wave of economic pressure that many in the administration believe is inevitable. Under this "ammunition" strategy, the government is essentially betting that the cost of transparency today is a price worth paying for the flexibility to act tomorrow.

A War Against Children Cannot be a Christian War

George Cassidy Payne

 April 10, 2026

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Image by Unsplash.

There are moments when political language begins to sound like something older than politics.

A prayer inside the Pentagon recently asked God to bless the “overwhelming violence of action” and to ensure that “every round find its mark.” Scripture was woven into the cadence of military speech, as though divine presence could be made to converge with operational precision.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking within a worship context tied to military life, drew from the Psalms: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed.” In that setting, the words do not remain safely in the past. They are re-entered as invocation, carried from ancient text into the present tense of state power.

Days later, amid escalating tensions and reported threats on infrastructure in Iran—including bridges, power grids, and a train station—President Donald Trump warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if demands were not met.

Taken together, these moments disclose a familiar grammar in American political speech: violence rendered not as tragedy to be constrained, but as necessity to be affirmed. The enemy becomes total, and destruction begins to take on the tone of moral clarity.

This is not without precedent. The Hebrew Bible, as Hegseth made clear, contains narratives in which warfare is narrated in sweeping and uncompromising terms, where divine authorization and collective judgment sit uncomfortably close together. These are not marginal texts. They are part of the scriptural inheritance that has shaped Jewish and Christian moral imagination alike.

Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible once named such passages “texts of terror,” not to dismiss them, but to acknowledge their enduring capacity to unsettle. Read honestly, scripture does not resolve its own tensions. It preserves them.

The question, then, is not whether scripture contains violent imagery. It is what happens when such imagery is carried into the liturgical and political life of the state without sustained theological interpretation.

It is important to recognize that this is not a new problem, nor one Christianity has ever settled. Across its history, the church has developed divergent ways of relating scripture to political authority. In the Constantinian tradition, state power could be understood as participating, however imperfectly, in divine ordering. In the peace churches, by contrast, any such alignment is viewed as a distortion of the gospel’s center.

That disagreement is not peripheral. It is constitutive of Christian political theology.

Hegseth is associated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a global Reformed denomination with churches across multiple continents. Its co-founder, Doug Wilson, has appeared in Pentagon worship contexts. The denomination emphasizes the comprehensive lordship of Christ over public life, while also drawing scrutiny for its conservative moral positions and its proximity to forms of Christian nationalist political theology.

At stake is not simply the presence of scripture in public life, but the interpretive frameworks that authorize its meaning.

The claim that Christ exercises lordship over all of life, including politics and statecraft, is a serious and intellectually coherent Christian position, particularly within Reformed thought. It insists that no sphere is morally neutral, and that even state violence is subject to divine judgment. Yet within that same claim lies a tension: whether appeals to divine sovereignty can meaningfully restrain violence in practice, or whether they risk providing it with a sacral vocabulary in moments of political urgency.

For Christians, these questions inevitably return to Jesus.

In my own formation in a First Baptist church in upstate New York, the moral center of the faith was articulated simply: Jesus as teacher of peace. Even within a conservative theological setting, we were taught to distinguish between the violence narrated in ancient texts and the ethical trajectory of the New Testament, where mercy, enemy-love, and non-retaliation come into focus.

That orientation deepened for me in later theological study at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Across traditions, Jesus remains a decisive figure for moral interpretation, though not in a way that eliminates disagreement.

A reader formed in Orthodox, sacramental, or political-theology traditions would resist reducing Christ to ethical nonviolence. Christ is not reducible to moral injunctions alone. Kingdom ethics does not stand alone. It exists alongside claims about order, protection, covenant, and the tragic burdens of governance in a fallen world.

Even here, however, there is a line that does not move.

In the New Testament, children are not incidental. They are placed at the center. “Let the little children come to me,” Jesus says, refusing the logic of exclusion. More than this, he issues a warning that reverberates across all Christian traditions: “Whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a great millstone fastened around their neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

This is not metaphor softened by time. It is moral clarity in its most severe form.

Whatever disagreements persist among Christians about the use of force, about just war, about sovereignty and restraint, there is no tradition within Christianity that affirms the targeting or instrumentalization of children. The protection of the child is not a peripheral ethic. It is a boundary condition of any claim to Christian moral reasoning.

Once children are absorbed into strategy, once their lives are rendered collateral or invisible, the argument is over.

International humanitarian law attempts to preserve this distinction in its own language, drawing lines between combatant and civilian, proportionality and excess. But law depends on moral vision. And moral vision depends, in part, on what cannot be justified.

A war that destroys the conditions of life for children, through bombing infrastructure, collapsing healthcare systems, or rendering entire populations vulnerable to starvation and displacement, cannot be reconciled with the moral universe of the New Testament.

It is not simply a violation of law. It is a contradiction of witness.

A war against children cannot be a Christian war.

And any political theology that cannot say this, without qualification, has already conceded too much.

George Cassidy Payne, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Rochester-based writer whose work sits at the intersection of politics, ethics, and lived experience. A poet, philosopher, and 988 crisis counselor, he covers issues of democracy, justice, and community resilience.