The cost of war

As these words are written in March, the situation in the Middle East is fast evolving and unpredictable. By the time you read these same words, it is impossible to know what will be happening there: More war? Less war? Some kind of peace? Change in Iran? We do not know.

As Christians we tend to assess wars in a number of ways: perhaps we use the well-established “Just War” theory; or maybe we have embraced pacifism for theological reasons. We may consider war historically, figuring that some past US interventions (Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan) haven’t worked out too well. Or maybe, for some, there is a particular eschatological grid through which we assess these things (Gog, Magog, Russia, Iran etc). Here is not the place to assess the rights and wrongs of these different approaches.

But whatever the Middle East situation when you read these words, and however you assess wars in your own mind, one thing is true: the dreadful human cost. It’s not merely those killed on all sides, and those who grieve. It is the resulting displacement of people. Just ten days into the conflict, the UN refugee agency estimated 767,000 people had become refugees since fighting began. (And Iran was already hosting 3.8 million refugees, mostly from Afghanistan).

Whatever the state of the war when you read these words, and whatever your way of thinking about its rights and wrongs, remember the refugees. For they are people just like you. War is no abstract matter; it brings a terrible, terrible cost. May we be those who “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute,” (Proverbs 31v8-9).