Israel conducted a strike in Iran early this morning in what appears to be its first military response to Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel last weekend.

Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that explosions were heard in the city of Isfahan in central Iran near an air force base. Iranian state TV also reported that several drones were shot down by air defenses in the city.

Climbing down “the escalation ladder”?

The limited scale of the attack and Iran’s muted response both seem to signal a successful effort by diplomats working to avert all-out war after Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel last Saturday. Tehran is playing down the incident and indicates it has no plans to respond. In fact, they referred to the incident as an attack by “infiltrators” rather than by Israel, obviating the need for retaliation.

According to Israeli officials, their leaders came close to ordering widespread strikes in Iran on the night Iran attacked. However, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to American President Joe Biden, and because the damage was limited, the war cabinet postponed a decision.

Rather than launching a response that would intensify the conflict with Iran, Israel chose a limited action aimed at military targets. Its response was reportedly intended to show Iran that Israel can strike within its borders, but without provoking a larger escalation. In turn, Iranian state-run media sought to minimize the incident, airing footage of an otherwise peaceful Isfahan morning.

“As long as Iran continues to deny the attack and deflect attention from it and no further hits are seen, there is space for both sides to climb down the escalation ladder for now,” according to Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

“Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies”

We can be grateful that leaders in Israel and Iran have apparently chosen the path of de-escalation, since an all-out war between their nations would affect the world in a number of dire ways:

• Oil supplies would be threatened, sending oil prices skyward and damaging the global economy.
• A conflict could trigger a sell-off in the global stock market, with oil-based sectors such as automobiles, transportation, and aviation taking the greatest hit.
• Such a war would likely bring Hezbollah more fully into the conflict, threatening all of Israel with its rocket and missile systems and formidable ground forces.
• And Iran could develop nuclear weapons, a step it has avoided thus far through fear of military escalation with Israel and the US.

However, we should not interpret the motives of Iranian and Israeli leaders so altruistically.

In his perceptive book Why Politics Fails, Oxford professor Ben Ansell writes:

The basic model underlying political economy is that everyone is selfish, or at the very least self-interested. You have a set of things that you want, and you’ll do your utmost to get them. Self-interest is everywhere. It explains why we do what we do. And why we should expect others to do that as well.

This is why, as British Prime Minister Henry John Temple stated in the mid-1800s:

“Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”

His sentiment was echoed most famously by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, but it applies to all nations across all of history.

Leaders in democracies are elected to advance the interests of the people they serve. However, it is in their self-interest to do so effectively enough to be reelected. Leaders in autocracies typically act to their personal benefit. In both cases, if we can determine what is in their self-interest, we can typically predict their behavior.

It is in Israel’s self-interest not to escalate conflict directly with Iran while it confronts the existential threat of Hamas in Gaza along with Hezbollah on its northern border, militias in Syria and Iraq, jihadists in the West Bank, and the Houthis in Yemen. It is in Iran’s self-interest to wage its war with Israel through proxies rather than in ways that directly endanger its military and economy.

Thus, the long-running “shadow war” between the two nations has apparently returned to its previous status quo—at least for now.

How to discover if you are a servant

What is true of national leaders is also true of individual humans. It is in my self-interest to write an article this morning that you will find helpful to the degree that you continue to read what I write and support the ministry that enables me to do this work. It is in your self-interest to read this article to the degree that it meets your personal needs on some level.

There is only one way to escape the “will to power” by which we strive to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), and that is to experience the transformation by which God’s Spirit remakes us in the image of God’s Son so that we manifest the character of the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8). The “fruit” of this Spirit in our lives is “love,” translating the Greek agape, which refers to the unconditional, self-sacrificial commitment to put the other person first (Galatians 5:22).

When we submit our lives every day to the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he enables us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). He empowers us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). With his help, we can break the cycle of retribution by forgiving as we have been forgiven and loving as we are loved.

Today’s news highlights the binary choice I discussed yesterday: to treat people as instrumentally valuable to the degree that they are means to our ends, or to treat them as intrinsically valuable as sacred bearers of the imago Dei (Genesis 1:27).

The former perpetuates the wars between nations and conflicts between people that have blighted humanity across our history. The latter is the path to God’s best for ourselves and our world as we emulate the One who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

To discover if you are truly a servant, see how you respond the next time someone treats you like one.

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The FBI arrested an eighteen-year-old in Idaho after discovering what it termed a “truly horrific” and “violent plot” to attack churches this past weekend on behalf of ISIS. According to an FBI investigator, “his attack plan involved using flame-covered weapons, explosives, knives, a machete, a pipe, and ultimately firearms.” The would-be terrorist also stated “his intention to die while killing others on behalf of ISIS.”

In related news, FBI Director Christopher Wray told an American Bar Association luncheon in Washington, DC:

The foreign terrorist threat and the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, like the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia Concert Hall a couple weeks ago, is now increasingly concerning. Oct. 7 and the conflict that’s followed will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come.

Why is this the case?

Geopolitical analyst George Friedman popularized the concept of the “metanarrative.” As I explained in a podcast on the subject, this is a nation or group’s cultural DNA or overall purpose. Understanding it is essential to interpreting their past and predicting their future.

Several years ago, ISIS made their metanarrative clear. In explaining why it hates the West, the group listed the West’s disbelief in Islam, the prevalence of secularism, atheism, “transgressions” against Islam, military operations, and tactical incursions. The group added that even a complete withdrawal from the Middle East would not stop its violence because “our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”

For America to confront this metanarrative effectively, it is vital that we return to ours.

Why we need a “coherent national community”

Michael Lind is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has previously taught courses on American democracy and foreign policy at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Virginia Tech. In a deeply researched article published this week in Tablet, he notes: “Most Americans—though not all—from 1776 onward have shared and continue to share a common language, a common culture, and common values that transcend particular religious groups.”

While we are a “melting pot” composed of people from around the world, our democracy works because we share what Lind calls a “coherent national community” in which we embrace foundational values that transcend our governmental charter.

By contrast, our secularized “post-truth” insistence upon tolerance as our supreme value is rapidly producing an atomized culture in which we are bound only by our laws. But Lind warns that if the larger “elements of a common American culture are thrown out” by our society, “what remains is more likely to be a failed state along the lines of Lebanon or Somalia than a flourishing democracy.”

If public polls are any indication, we’re already heading in that direction.

According to Pew Research Center, public trust in our institutions has fallen from near 80 percent in 1964 to less than 20 percent today. A recent Gallup survey charts a precipitous decline in “Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the US” from more than 70 percent in 2004 to 23 percent today. In my view, these findings are linked.

If you were to ask an American of my parents’ World War II generation why our nation exists, they would likely have said that we serve to protect and promote democracy around the world. If you ask an American today, what would they say? Would any two answers agree?

“The finest of the wheat”

Our God is a loving Father who wants to bless us, who invites us to “open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10). He desires to “feed you with the finest of the wheat” and to “satisfy you” with “honey from the rock” (v. 16).

However, a holy God cannot bless that which is unholy and remain holy. Nor can a loving Father bless that which harms his child. Consequently, no nation’s unity or flourishing is guaranteed, as today’s anniversary of the beginning of the US Civil War demonstrates.

Michael Lind’s essay reinforces my argument this week:

1. Our national future requires the consensual morality upon which our democracy depends.
2. Consensual morality requires changed hearts, not just enforced laws.
3. Changed hearts require the transforming agency of the Holy Spirit.

This means that evangelism is not the imposition of personal opinion but the sharing of life-giving truth. Spiritual formation is not the religious hobby of some but the indispensable path to flourishing for all. Serving Christ is vital to serving America.

Stated succinctly:

Being people God is able to bless is essential to being a nation God can bless.

Oswald Chambers noted: “If I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God.”

How fully will you “see the face of God” today?

NOTE: When our culture increasingly demands that Christians stand down, how can you stand firm in your faith? In our newest book, Between Compromise and Courage (2nd ed.), we look at 8 hot-button topics from a biblical perspective. To read more about AI, gun control, the end times, and more, request our latest book today.

Friday news to know:

• J. Simpson, football star whose trial riveted the nation, dies at 76
• Iranian attack expected on Israel in next two days
• US, Japan military-to-military relationship reaches “new heights”
• Astronauts watched the eclipse from ISS Space Station and grabbed some cool pictures and video
• On this day in 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Birmingham

Quote for the day:

“The proximate result of obedience to God is inward conformity to the divine image.” —Charles Hodge

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