Pre-Emptive Self-Defense: George Washington’s Warning and the War with Iran
“Not less difficult is it to make them believe, that offensive operations oftentimes are the surest, if not in some cases the only means of defence.”
— George Washington, 1799
Peace Requires the Will to Defend It
Nations rightly pursue peace through diplomacy, treaties, and economic pressure. But peace is not kept by restraint alone. When an adversary has shown, over decades, that it is building the means to threaten your existence, waiting for the first blow is not prudence. It is negligence.
Washington understood this. Some dangers are visible from a distance, and a government that refuses to act until the danger arrives has failed its citizens.
That is the situation the United States and Israel faced with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The military campaign launched on February 28, 2026, was not a war of choice against a peaceful nuclear energy program. It was a response to a regime that spent years building toward a nuclear weapon while hiding behind the language of civilian energy. As of October 2026, the conflict continues, and the core questions remain: Iran’s nuclear material, its control over the Strait of Hormuz, and the threat posed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iran has long claimed its nuclear program exists for electricity and medicine. The evidence says otherwise.
No civilian power reactor requires uranium enriched to 60%. Commercial reactors run on fuel enriched to roughly 3–5%. Yet Iran built a stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, a short technical step from the 90% used in weapons. By the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own figures, Iran held about 441 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium by June 2025. The IAEA treats roughly 42 kilograms of that material as theoretically sufficient for one bomb if further enriched. Iran had enough for several weapons, with no credible civilian use for it.
In 2023, inspectors found uranium particles enriched to nearly 84% at Fordow. Iran called it an “unintended fluctuation.” Meanwhile, Tehran restricted inspectors, denied visas, and removed experienced monitors. After the 2025 strikes, the IAEA lost the ability to verify where Iran’s highly enriched uranium even was.
A country with nothing to hide does not behave this way. A country building a weapon, and buying time to finish it, does.
The argument for action does not rest on the nuclear program alone. It rests on who would control the weapon.
The IRGC is not a conventional military answerable to ordinary political restraints. It is an ideological force that has armed and directed Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq and Syria. It has attacked commercial shipping, targeted U.S. forces, and launched hundreds of missiles and drones directly at Israel in 2024. Since the February 2026 campaign began, Iran has fired on Israel, U.S. bases, and neighboring Gulf states, and moved to close the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global trade.
This is the behavior of a regime without a nuclear weapon. With one, the IRGC and its proxies could act under a nuclear umbrella, confident that no one would dare respond decisively. Every terror campaign, every attack on shipping, every missile salvo would carry an implicit nuclear threat behind it.
Deterrence works against rational states with something to lose. It is a dangerous bet against an organization whose leaders have openly called for Israel’s destruction.
Critics argue that the threat was not “imminent” and that strikes amounted to preventive war. But that framing misunderstands the nuclear problem.
With a conventional army, there is warning: troops mass, ships move, preparations become visible. With a nuclear breakout, the window between “close to a bomb” and “has a bomb” can be measured in weeks. Iran’s 60% stockpile meant the hardest work was already done. Once a weapon exists, the option to stop it disappears permanently.
Waiting would have meant:
- Israel living under the permanent threat of annihilation from a regime that denies its right to exist.
- U.S. forces across the region exposed to a nuclear-backed adversary and its proxies.
- Gulf states pressured into submission or into nuclear programs of their own, triggering a regional arms race.
- Global commerce held hostage in the Strait of Hormuz by a regime that could no longer be confronted.
Washington’s warning applies directly. The danger was visible at a distance. The means to avert it were available. The question was whether leaders had the will to use them before the window closed.
Military force cannot erase scientific knowledge, and Iran retains the expertise to rebuild. Strikes alone will not end the threat. Lasting security requires sustained pressure: verifiable surrender of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, intrusive inspections, enforcement against IRGC proxies, and guaranteed freedom of navigation in the Gulf.
But the hard truth remains. Diplomacy had been tried for two decades. Iran used those years to enrich further, obstruct inspectors, and expand its proxy network. A responsible government does not wait for a regime like that to cross the finish line. As Washington understood, sometimes the surest way to defend is to act first.
