A Just War

The Case Against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Christian Tradition

Augustine of Hippo writing under the light of Veritas (“Truth”), holding the flaming heart that represents his restless pursuit of God. For Augustine, peace was not mere absence of conflict, but the “tranquility of order”, a condition grounded in justice, not simply maintained by restraint.

Recent statements by the Pope have brought the question of war, morality, and divine judgment back into public debate. Writing publicly, he declared that “God does not bless any conflict” and that peace comes only through dialogue and coexistence. As the Bishop of Rome, his words carry moral weight and warrant serious consideration. Yet even within the broader catholic (that is, universal) Christian tradition, including but not limited to the Church in communion with Rome, important distinctions have always been made between definitive teaching on matters of faith and morals and prudential judgments about political realities. The application of moral principles to specific conflicts has never been treated as an area of infallible declaration, and throughout history, faithful Catholics, including theologians and statesmen, have recognized the legitimacy of disagreement in such matters. What is at issue here is not simply a prudential judgment about a particular war, but a broader claim about the nature of God, violence, and the conditions under which peace can be achieved, a claim that therefore invites careful examination within the very tradition from which it arises.

Taken at face value, such a claim would seem to exclude even those uses of force that have long been understood as morally necessary within the Christian tradition, including the liberation of the oppressed and the defeat of regimes engaged in systematic injustice. It is also a claim that does not withstand serious examination when measured against Scripture, the historical experience of the Church, or the developed doctrine of Christian moral theology.

The assertion that God does not bless any conflict reflects a moral framework that has become increasingly common in the modern West. It assumes that violence is always outside the moral order, that conflict itself is inherently unjust, and that peace can be secured primarily through restraint, negotiation, and coexistence. This framework is appealing precisely because it removes the burden of judgment. If all violence is equally wrong, then no difficult distinctions need to be made. The moral problem appears solved in advance.

But this simplicity comes at a cost. It requires ignoring large portions of Scripture, flattening the tradition of the Church, and abstracting morality away from the realities of human conflict. The biblical narrative does not describe a world in which evil consistently yields to dialogue, nor does it present a God who is morally neutral in the face of oppression. It describes a world in which injustice is often persistent, coercive, and violent, and in which peace is sometimes achieved not through coexistence, but through the defeat of those who refuse it.

The Catholic tradition did not emerge in ignorance of this reality. It emerged from it. The early Church confronted persecution, political instability, and the collapse of imperial order. It was in this context that thinkers like Augustine of Hippo began to grapple with the moral implications of force. His conclusion was not that all war is wrong, but that some wars are tragically necessary. As he wrote, “the injustice of the opposing party compels the wise man to wage just wars” (Augustine, 1955). This is not an endorsement of violence. It is a recognition that the refusal to confront injustice can itself become a moral failure.

This insight was later systematized by Thomas Aquinas, who provided the clearest articulation of the just war framework. Aquinas did not deny the evil of war. He placed it under moral discipline, insisting that it could only be justified under strict conditions: legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention (Aquinas, 1947). These were not loopholes. They were constraints designed to ensure that force, when used, was ordered toward justice rather than merely domination.

The modern Catechism of the Catholic Church preserves this structure and develops it further, requiring that the harm inflicted by the aggressor be grave and certain, that peaceful means have been shown to be ineffective, that there be a reasonable chance of success, and that the use of force not produce greater evils than those it seeks to eliminate (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993). None of this language suggests that all conflict is morally identical or that the use of force is categorically outside God’s moral order. On the contrary, it assumes that under certain conditions, the use of force is not only permitted but required.

The deeper problem with the claim that God does not bless any conflict is that it fails to account for the nature of evil as it is presented in Scripture and history. Evil is not always persuadable. It is not always responsive to dialogue. It is not always willing to coexist. In many cases, it advances precisely because it is not resisted. A moral framework that assumes otherwise breaks down when confronted with sustained, organized violence.

The question, therefore, is not whether peace is desirable. It is. But within the Christian tradition, peace is not defined simply as the absence of conflict or the avoidance of violence at any cost. It is understood more fundamentally as the presence of order, justice, and right relationship. As Augustine of Hippo writes, “Peace is the tranquility of order” (City of God), a condition in which each part of society is rightly ordered and justice is upheld. The Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes this understanding, teaching that peace is “the work of justice and the effect of charity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993). In this sense, peace cannot be reduced to coexistence with injustice, nor can it be secured by the mere suspension of conflict where coercion and violence remain operative beneath the surface.

This distinction is critical, because not all conceptions of peace are morally equivalent. Throughout history, “peace” has often been defined not as the restoration of justice, but as the imposition of order through domination or the submission of one party to another. In various historical systems, including those in which religious minorities were permitted to exist only under conditions of legal inferiority, such as the status of dhimmi, in which non-Muslims were required to pay the jizya tax and accept a subordinate position within the political order, peace was understood primarily as the absence of open rebellion against established authority rather than the presence of equal justice under a common law. History offers many examples of systems that maintained outward stability while embedding forms of legal inequality and constraint within their structure. Such arrangements could endure for long periods without open conflict, yet still fall short of the justice required for peace in the Christian sense.

Such conditions may produce outward stability, but they do not constitute peace in the sense recognized by the Christian tradition. They represent the suppression of conflict rather than its resolution, a condition in which injustice remains intact, enforced by power rather than corrected by it. The point is not merely theoretical. Even within the American experience, systems such as slavery and later racial segregation under Jim Crow laws produced long periods of outward order and coexistence, yet were grounded in clear and systemic injustice. To describe such conditions as “peace” would be to confuse the absence of open conflict with the presence of justice. In the same way, a moral framework that treats all conflict as inherently unjust would struggle to account for the use of force by the Union to end slavery, unless it first recognizes that a condition built on injustice is not peace at all. Once that distinction is made, the use of force to end such injustice is not a departure from moral reasoning, but its fulfillment.

The question, therefore, is whether peace, rightly understood as the restoration of just order, can always be achieved by the means suggested, and whether the refusal to use force in the face of persistent injustice is morally superior to its restrained and disciplined use. The Christian tradition answers this question in the negative. It recognizes that where injustice is sustained by force, peace in its true sense cannot be restored simply by refusing to resist it.

This is the framework within which any serious evaluation of modern conflict must take place. It does not begin with the assumption that all violence is wrong. It begins with the recognition that the world is disordered, that injustice is real, and that the restoration of peace sometimes requires more than words.

The failure of this modern framework becomes immediately clear when measured against the biblical record itself. The God revealed in Scripture is not a passive observer of human conflict, nor one who stands apart from the struggle between justice and injustice. He acts within it. In Book of Exodus 15:3, after the destruction of Pharaoh’s army and the liberation of Israel from slavery, the text declares, “The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.” This is not symbolic language detached from history. It is a response to a concrete act of deliverance in which an oppressive power that refused every peaceful demand was decisively overthrown.

The same pattern appears throughout the Old Testament, where God does not merely call for justice in the abstract but enacts it, often through the defeat of those who persist in oppression. This is not incidental to the biblical narrative. It is central to it, and it immediately places tension on any claim that God stands wholly outside conflict or refuses to act within it. This pattern is not limited to acts of direct divine intervention. It extends to the actions of human agents acting under divine authority. In the life of King David, God is not depicted as distant from human conflict, but as actively guiding and judging it. David repeatedly inquires of the Lord before engaging in battle, and receives explicit direction. In one such instance, the Lord answers him, “Go, for I will surely give the Philistines into your hand” (1 Samuel 23:4). In another, “When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself, for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines” (2 Samuel 5:24). These are not ambiguous passages. They describe not merely the permission of conflict, but its sanction, direction, and successful outcome under divine authority.

This continuity is not incidental to Christian theology. The New Testament does not present a different God, but a fuller revelation of the same God acting in history. The Gospel of John begins by declaring, “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God” (John 1:1), identifying Christ not as a departure from the God of Israel, but as His incarnate presence in history, the same Word “through whom all things were made” (John 1:3). The author of Hebrews makes the same claim more explicitly, stating that the Son is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). Within this framework, the actions attributed to God in the Old Testament cannot be set aside as belonging to a different moral order. They are part of the same divine reality revealed in Christ. The distinction, therefore, is not between a God of war and a God of peace, but between a partial understanding and a fuller revelation of the same God, whose justice and mercy are not in opposition, but in unity. For this reason, it is not theologically coherent to affirm Christ while denying the moral significance of the actions attributed to God in the Old Testament.

Scripture does not merely recount such acts; it also imposes a duty to confront injustice. In Book of Proverbs 24:11, the command is explicit: “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” This is not a suggestion but an imperative. The moral weight of this command is reinforced by the warning that follows, which condemns those who excuse inaction. The tradition has consistently understood this as establishing a principle that extends beyond individual charity into the realm of public responsibility. Aquinas makes this connection explicit when he writes, “The care of the common good is committed to those who are in authority… and it is their business to watch over the common weal… by repressing internal disturbances and by warding off external enemies” (Aquinas, 1947).

This understanding is confirmed in the New Testament. In Epistle to the Romans 13:4, governing authority “does not bear the sword in vain… he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out wrath on the wrongdoer.” This establishes that force, when exercised by legitimate authority, is not outside the moral order but part of it.

Within this framework, the question turns to judgment. Aquinas’s requirement of just cause must be understood in its full weight. It does not arise from a single offense but from a sustained pattern of wrongdoing. When applied to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the historical record is not ambiguous. It begins with the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy, in which 66 Americans were held hostage for 444 days (U.S. Department of State, 2020). It continues with the 1983 Beirut attacks, in which 63 people were killed in the embassy bombing, including 17 Americans, and 241 U.S. servicemen were killed in the Marine barracks bombing carried out by Iranian-backed Hezbollah (Congressional Research Service, 2023). It extends through decades of proxy warfare, including the killing of at least 603 American servicemembers in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias (U.S. Department of State, 2020). It persists in the present, with more than 180 attacks carried out by Iranian proxies against U.S. forces in recent years (U.S. Central Command, 2024). This pattern is not episodic. It is continuous.

At the same time, the regime has demonstrated a consistent willingness to use lethal force against its own population. More than 500 civilians were killed during the 2022 protests, and thousands more in subsequent unrest, with verified deaths exceeding 4,000 and total fatalities surpassing 5,000 in 2026 (Human Rights Watch, 2024; Reuters, 2026a). These actions establish not merely wrongdoing, but a governing system sustained by violence.

In the framework established by Aquinas and Augustine, this continuity matters. Just cause arises from a pattern of harm that removes ambiguity. The question is not whether harm has occurred, but whether it can be allowed to continue.

The requirement of right intention imposes a further discipline. Augustine insists that “peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity” (Augustine, 1955). This ensures that war is not pursued for domination, but for the restoration of order. When the objective is the restraint of violence and the protection of innocent life, the intention aligns with this requirement.

The requirement of last resort must be understood not as a procedural checklist, but as a judgment about effectiveness grounded in reality. The Catechism requires that “all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993), but this cannot be satisfied merely by the existence of negotiations. It requires that those negotiations have altered the underlying behavior that gives rise to conflict. Where they have not, the condition is met in substance, even if diplomatic forms continue.

In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the history of nuclear negotiations over more than two decades provides a clear and well-documented pattern. Beginning in the early 2000s, Iranian nuclear activities came under international scrutiny when previously undeclared facilities at Natanz and Arak were revealed in 2002. These facilities had not been disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite Iran’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This initial concealment established a baseline problem that would persist: the gap between declared activity and actual behavior.

In response, Iran entered into negotiations with European powers in 2003, temporarily agreeing to suspend uranium enrichment. Yet this suspension was voluntary, incomplete, and ultimately reversible. By 2005, enrichment activities resumed, accompanied by continued disputes over inspection and disclosure. Over the following decade, negotiations proceeded in cycles of escalation and partial accommodation, with Iran alternately advancing its program and offering limited concessions sufficient to relieve pressure without fundamentally altering its trajectory.

This pattern culminated in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which imposed temporary restrictions on enrichment levels, stockpile size, and centrifuge development, in exchange for sanctions relief. While the agreement succeeded in slowing certain aspects of the program in the short term, it did not dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Key provisions were time-limited, inspection regimes remained contested, and the underlying technical capacity was preserved. The agreement was not designed to eliminate the program, but to manage it.

Subsequent developments reinforced the limits of this approach. Following the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran resumed and expanded enrichment activities beyond the agreement’s limits. Enrichment levels increased progressively, eventually reaching 60 percent purity, a level far beyond civilian requirements and close to weapons-grade. At the same time, stockpiles of enriched uranium grew substantially, and advanced centrifuge development continued. These actions were accompanied by restrictions on inspection access and unresolved questions regarding undeclared nuclear material and sites.

The International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly reported gaps in Iran’s cooperation, including failures to provide credible explanations for nuclear material found at undeclared locations and limitations placed on monitoring equipment. By 2025, the IAEA concluded that Iran had conducted nuclear activities involving undeclared material at multiple sites and was not in full compliance with its safeguards obligations (IAEA, 2025). These findings did not emerge in isolation. They reflected a consistent pattern of partial disclosure, delayed cooperation, and strategic ambiguity.

At the same time, Iranian leadership has continued to frame its nuclear program within a broader posture of confrontation with the United States and its allies. The slogan “Death to America,” originating during the 1979 revolution, has not been abandoned or softened over time. It remains a recurring feature of state-sponsored events and political rhetoric, reflecting not a temporary dispute but a persistent ideological position. Within this context, negotiations have not occurred between neutral parties seeking mutual accommodation, but between adversaries operating within fundamentally opposed strategic frameworks.

This pattern of behavior is not unique to the nuclear issue. It mirrors the regime’s broader approach to conflict, in which overt commitments are paired with covert action, and formal agreements coexist with proxy operations across the region. The use of Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and other affiliated groups to conduct attacks while maintaining plausible deniability reflects the same underlying logic: engagement without full transparency, cooperation without full compliance.

In the framework established by Aquinas, the question is not whether dialogue has occurred, but whether it has been effective in removing the conditions that justify the use of force. In this case, the answer is clear. Decades of negotiation have not halted the advancement of Iran’s nuclear program, have not ended its use of proxy violence, and have not altered its fundamental posture toward the United States and its allies. Diplomacy has not failed for lack of opportunity. It has failed because the underlying conditions that make it effective have not been present.

Aquinas does not require that every possible avenue of negotiation be exhausted indefinitely. He requires prudence, which includes the recognition of when continued reliance on ineffective means allows a threat to grow unchecked. The condition of last resort is therefore not a matter of timing, but of judgment. When peaceful means have been shown, over time and through repeated effort, to be insufficient to address a grave and persistent threat, the requirement is met.

The principle of proportionality requires a comparison between the harm that would be caused by the use of force and the harm that would result from allowing the present condition to continue. The Catechism expresses this requirement by stating that “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993). This formulation is often misunderstood as a demand that war produce minimal harm or that it be judged against an abstract ideal of peace. In reality, it requires a concrete moral comparison between two real alternatives: action and inaction. It does not permit the comparison of war to an imagined state of stability that does not exist. It requires that war be measured against the actual trajectory of events if force is not used.

In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the relevant baseline is not peace, but a condition already marked by sustained violence, internal repression, and regional destabilization. The regime has demonstrated, over decades, a willingness to use force both internally and externally as a primary instrument of policy. The suppression of domestic protests, resulting in thousands of deaths over successive waves of unrest (Human Rights Watch, 2024; Reuters, 2026a), is not an isolated phenomenon but a recurring feature of governance. This internal violence is matched by external activity carried out through a network of proxy forces operating across Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and Yemen. These groups have conducted attacks that have killed American servicemembers, targeted civilian populations, and disrupted regional stability, including the repeated targeting of commercial shipping lanes by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, with consequences extending beyond the region itself.

The cumulative effect of this activity is not static. It is progressive. Each successful act of coercion reinforces the regime’s strategic position and increases its capacity to act in the future. This dynamic is particularly significant in the context of its nuclear program. The continued advancement of uranium enrichment, the expansion of stockpiles, and the development of delivery systems introduce the possibility of a qualitative shift in the scale of potential harm. A nuclear-capable Iran would not simply represent a continuation of current conditions, but an escalation to a level at which deterrence, coercion, and proxy conflict would operate under the shadow of weapons capable of mass destruction.

In this context, the harm associated with inaction is not limited to the continuation of existing patterns. It includes the risk of their expansion and entrenchment. The failure to act does not preserve the status quo. It allows a dynamic system of violence to evolve toward greater capacity and greater consequence. Proportionality must therefore account not only for present harm, but for foreseeable future harm that arises from the continuation of current trajectories.

The harm associated with military action must be weighed against this background. War inevitably produces destruction, loss of life, and unintended consequences. These realities cannot be dismissed or minimized. They are central to the moral gravity of the decision. But the Catholic tradition does not treat these harms in isolation. It requires that they be evaluated in relation to the harms they are intended to prevent. As Aquinas makes clear, the use of force must be ordered toward the advancement of good and the avoidance of greater evil (Aquinas, 1947). The moral question is therefore not whether war causes harm, but whether the harm it seeks to prevent is greater than the harm it produces.

Historical experience reinforces this framework. In cases where aggressive regimes have been allowed to expand unchecked, the eventual cost of confrontation has often increased rather than decreased. The longer a system of violence is allowed to develop, the greater its capacity becomes and the more destructive the eventual conflict required to restrain it. This is not a theoretical observation, but a recurring pattern in the history of conflict.

Applied to the present case, proportionality requires a judgment about whether the use of force now, directed toward limiting the regime’s capacity for violence and preventing further escalation, would result in less harm than allowing the current trajectory to continue. This includes consideration of the potential consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran, the continued expansion of proxy warfare, and the ongoing repression of its population. It also includes consideration of the risks inherent in military action, including escalation, regional instability, and civilian harm.

The principle does not yield a simple calculation. It requires prudential judgment informed by evidence and grounded in reality. But it does establish a clear standard: the moral evaluation of war cannot be made by comparing it to an idealized vision of peace that does not exist. It must be made by comparing it to the actual conditions that will prevail if no action is taken.

In that light, the refusal to act is not a neutral position. It is a decision to accept the continuation and likely expansion of a pattern of violence that has already demonstrated its scale and persistence. Proportionality, properly understood, does not ask whether war is harmful. It asks whether failing to act would allow a greater harm to take root and grow. When that condition is met, the use of force, while tragic, may be morally justified as the lesser of two evils.

Finally, the requirement of a reasonable chance of success demands that the use of force be directed toward objectives that are not merely desirable, but realistically achievable. In the Catholic tradition, this requirement functions as a safeguard against futile or purely expressive violence. Thomas Aquinas does not require certainty of outcome, nor does he demand that war produce a perfect or permanent resolution to conflict. What he rejects is the use of force in circumstances where no meaningful good can be expected to result. War undertaken without a plausible path to achieving its moral aims is not an act of justice, but an act of destruction.

This distinction is critical. The standard is not perfection, but prudence. Aquinas recognizes that human affairs are contingent and that outcomes are never fully predictable. The question is not whether success is guaranteed, but whether there is a reasonable basis for believing that the objectives of the war can be achieved to a degree that justifies the harm it will cause. This requires that those objectives be clearly defined, limited in scope, and grounded in the capabilities of the actors involved.

In the present case, the relevant objectives are not utopian. They do not involve the transformation of Iranian society, the imposition of a new political order, or the elimination of all sources of conflict in the region. Such goals would fail the test of prudence from the outset. Rather, the objectives that must be evaluated are more specific and more closely tied to the harms identified under the criteria of just cause and proportionality. These include the degradation of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the disruption of its ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, the reduction of its stockpiles, and the limitation of its capacity to weaponize that material. They also include the weakening of the network of proxy forces through which Iran projects power across the region, including the disruption of supply lines, command structures, and operational capabilities.

These objectives are not hypothetical. They correspond to identifiable facilities, systems, and organizations. Nuclear infrastructure such as enrichment facilities, centrifuge production sites, and storage locations are finite and targetable. The history of military operations demonstrates that such infrastructure can be degraded or destroyed, setting back nuclear programs by years. Similarly, proxy networks, while resilient, depend on logistical support, training, funding, and coordination that can be disrupted through targeted action. The effectiveness of such efforts does not depend on eliminating these networks entirely, but on reducing their capacity to conduct sustained operations.

The feasibility of these objectives must be evaluated in light of the capabilities of the actors involved. The United States and its allies possess advanced intelligence, surveillance, and strike capabilities, including precision-guided munitions, cyber capabilities, and the ability to project force across long distances. These capabilities have been demonstrated in previous operations targeting both state and non-state actors. While Iran presents a more complex and capable adversary than many past opponents, it does not possess unlimited defensive capacity. Its infrastructure is vulnerable, and its proxy networks, while dispersed, are not immune to disruption.

At the same time, the requirement of a reasonable chance of success must account for the risks of escalation and unintended consequences. Military action against Iran could provoke retaliation, both directly and through proxies. It could destabilize the region and lead to broader conflict. These risks are real and must be weighed carefully. But they do not, in themselves, negate the possibility of success. The question is whether the anticipated benefits of action, in terms of reducing the regime’s capacity for harm, outweigh the risks associated with escalation.

Historical experience again provides relevant context. In cases where limited, clearly defined military objectives have been pursued with appropriate force and strategic clarity, it has often been possible to achieve meaningful results without requiring total victory. The disruption of specific capabilities, the degradation of infrastructure, and the imposition of costs on adversaries have, in many cases, altered strategic behavior and reduced the capacity for further harm. While such outcomes are never permanent, they can create conditions in which the scale and intensity of conflict are reduced.

In the framework established by Aquinas, this is sufficient. The requirement is not that war produce a final and complete resolution to all underlying problems, but that it produce a meaningful improvement in the conditions that justify its use. If military action can reasonably be expected to degrade nuclear capabilities, disrupt proxy networks, and reduce the regime’s capacity to engage in sustained violence, then the requirement of a reasonable chance of success is met.

What Aquinas rejects is not risk, but futility. A war that cannot achieve its stated aims is unjust because it imposes harm without the possibility of corresponding good. But where the objectives are concrete, the means are available, and the anticipated outcomes include a real reduction in harm, the use of force may be justified even in the face of uncertainty.

In this case, the objectives are clear, the capabilities exist, and the potential for meaningful impact is real. The requirement of a reasonable chance of success, properly understood, does not demand certainty. It demands that the use of force be ordered toward achievable ends. Under that standard, the condition is satisfied.

The Pope’s statement does not reflect the full teaching of the Catholic tradition, nor the reality to which that tradition responds. The Church has never taught that all conflict lies outside the moral order, nor that peace can always be secured through dialogue and coexistence. It has taught, consistently and with increasing clarity, that while war is always tragic, it is not always unjust, and that the failure to confront sustained and organized evil can itself become a moral failure. Judged according to the criteria articulated by Augustine, refined by Aquinas, and preserved in the Catechism, the question is not whether the use of force is morally permissible in the abstract, but whether it is ordered toward the restraint of injustice in a world where injustice persists. When that standard is applied to the historical record, the pattern of aggression, and the foreseeable trajectory of events, the conclusion is not ambiguous. It follows directly from the principles themselves.

References

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Augustine. (1955). The City of God. Modern Library.

Catechism of the Catholic Church. (1993). Vatican Press.

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International Atomic Energy Agency. (2025). Iran safeguards report.

Reuters. (2026a). Iran protest deaths reporting.

Reuters. (2026b). Iran nuclear enrichment reporting.

U.S. Central Command. (2024). Regional attack data.

U.S. Department of State. (2020). Iranian involvement in Iraq casualties.