LETTER: Justification standards

Published 1:30 am Saturday, April 4, 2026

Cal Thomas (PDN, March 12) raises a serious concern about the danger posed by militant Islamist movements and regimes pursuing nuclear capability.

Groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda demonstrate how religious absolutism can be fused with political violence.

As with white Christian Nationalism, we should not minimize that threat.

At the same time, prudence requires careful distinctions.

Islam is practiced by nearly 2 billion people across widely different cultures and political systems. The overwhelming majority neither support nor participate in extremist interpretations of concepts such as Jihad or the imposition of Sharia through violence.

My view is simple: not all Muslims are our friends, but we do not need to make them our enemies.

Treating an entire religious civilization as a unified adversary risks misunderstanding the problem and alienating those who oppose extremism.

That same clarity should apply to American policy.

Preemptive military action must meet a very high standard of justification. A presidential feeling that Iran might be preparing an attack is not sufficient grounds for bombing another sovereign nation.

Such action, without clear evidence and defined objectives, weakens the credibility of the United States as a defender of international order.

Strategic consequences matter.

If Washington acts on intuition rather than demonstrable necessity, it diminishes our authority when urging restraint elsewhere, whether in Russia’s war against Ukraine or in deterring the People’s Republic of China from considering aggression against Taiwan.

A durable peace requires discipline: identifying genuine threats while resisting both ideological caricature and impulsive warfare.

Phil Lusk

Port Townsend