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In this episode, I wrestle with the moral and strategic unease I’ve felt watching the bombing of Iran unfold — and, more specifically, watching the applause that has followed it. Iran’s regime is brutal. Its nuclear ambitions are dangerous. There is a serious argument that diplomacy reached its limits.

But even if military force was necessary, should it be celebrated?

I explore the difference between resolve and revelry, why asking about strategy is not disloyalty, and what the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan still have to teach us. War may sometimes be justified. It is never entertainment. A morally serious nation can act with strength — and still take no pleasure in destruction.

This is not an argument for pacifism. It’s an argument for sobriety.