The Trump administration’s decision to neutralize Iran’s nuclear facilities was a heroic, necessary, and indispensable act of global leadership. In just 12 days, the United States and Israel halted the nuclear ambitions of the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, achieving this–thank God–with zero American casualties.
However, to the Princeton School of Public & International Affairs (SPIA), this is apparently a bad thing. Visit SPIA’s official X account—which regularly platforms faculty perspectives on evolving world events—and you will not find, among the 10 faculty quotes about these events posted between June 18th-23rd, a single voice that even modestly frames these actions positively. Consider the following statements:
On June 23, Deborah Pearlstein, Director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Policy, called U.S. actions a “breach of our obligations of the U.N. charter,” contending there was “no credible case…that the self-defense standard was met here.”
On June 18, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor Kenneth Roth called Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities “wholly unnecessary,” claiming Iran “was not on the verge of having a bomb.” Moreover, Roth contended that “Israel’s bombing has sabotaged” negotiations.
Razia Iqbal, John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor and Lecturer–who recently reposted content implying that Israel is a greater obstacle to peace in Middle East than Iran–confidently asserted on June 23 that there was “little or no imminent threat” from Iran’s nuclear program and that the Israeli and the U.S. strikes have caused “massive” damage to “diplomacy and international law.”
And perhaps most dubiously, on June 23, SPIA lecturer and former Biden administration official Ali Nouri claimed President Trump’s actions would, “push Iran back into the shadows where they’re more dangerous than ever,” adding “We swapped a [nuclear] program we could watch for one we can’t and empowered Iran’s hardliners with the perfect excuse to go nuclear.”
The statements within these posts are ethically ill-considered and factually specious.
First, they erroneously (or perhaps intentionally) obfuscate the reality of the Iranian regime’s clear record and motive of hostility. The Iranian government is an evil entity that rejects fundamental understandings of liberty and peace, chants “death to America, death to Israel,” and, through its terrorist proxies, has claimed nearly 1,000 U.S. lives over five decades. Nouri’s statement, in particular, suggests that only now, after these strikes, will Iran’s “hardliners” choose to “go nuclear.” To him, apparently, it’s been the moderates building Fordow 280 feet underground over the last two decades.
Second, these statements hide behind bent truth. Some of these faculty members—who appear blessed with more intel than the Pentagon—claim with confidence that Iran’s nuclear program posed no imminent threat. No matter the IAEA’s recent assessment that Iran was not compliant with its nuclear non-proliferation agreement and had enriched uranium upwards of 60%, far beyond the 3-5% needed for civilian nuclear energy. While true that Iran lacked a reliable delivery mechanism, which could have delayed weaponization, it’s unclear how quickly they could have overcome this obstacle.
Third, these statements insinuate that the U.S. and Israel are at fault for failed diplomacy. If only we had talked it out more with Iranian officials (who must surely share our liberal Western sensibilities), we could have solved all of this! But this is fiction. For 60 days, Iran stonewalled in talks, refusing any sort of meaningful concessions as it pushed its enrichment further, betting it could act with impunity.
Beyond these flawed arguments, the stakes of Iran’s nuclear ambitions demand a broader perspective. A nuclear-armed Iran would pose severe regional and global threats by emboldening its proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, while risking a nuclear arms race with rivals like Saudi Arabia. Such a development, coupled with Iran’s history of threatening Israel and global energy routes, would be fundamentally incompatible with the stability and values of the free world.
Every U.S. President since Clinton has echoed America’s red line of a non-nuclear Iran. Yet, only President Trump’s warning had teeth. Iran had a choice, and it chose poorly. Trump had a choice, and he chose decisively. Sometimes, negotiations cannot deter such malevolence. The strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were necessary preemptive measures to eliminate an imminent threat.
Efforts to frame the U.S. strike as impulsive are also more rooted in ideology than reality. Speaking at a June 26 press conference, Gen. Dan Caines stated that “Operation Midnight Hammer was the culmination of…15 years” of preparation. For a decade, Trump had been adamant that a nuclear Iran was not an option. This precise strike, long in the works, was only made strategically possible by Israel’s decimation of Iran’s proxies and air defense capabilities.
Only now, with Iran’s military capabilities and command structure crippled, has true peace become possible. The Ayatollah’s agreement to a ceasefire offers a potential off-ramp that all of us, regardless of ideology, should hope leads to a Middle East free from terrorism’s grip. With Iran, this required not just sanctions or negotiations, but decisive military action in order to bring true diplomacy to the table. The world is safer for it.
While these faculty statements are questionable, SPIA’s broader failure to represent diverse perspectives is even more concerning. Complex policy discussions require diversity of thought, which SPIA isn’t presenting. Institutions lose their credibility when they reject plain realities, or, at best, fail to even platform perspectives held by pluralities or majorities of Americans, let alone the Pentagon and the sitting U.S. President.
I have no qualms with SPIA platforming voices who believe that further attempts at diplomacy–or never having left the JCPOA in 2018– were preferable methods of handling the Iranian nuclear quandary. I do have qualms with SPIA not being capable of, or not willing to, platforming a single faculty quote making the opposite case.
To conclude, this exhortation is not about tearing SPIA down, but building it up. I remain grateful for my years in the program and the many lifelong bonds formed with students and faculty. I fully endorse SPIA’s mission to “convene the brightest minds for the greatest good.” But this is not possible when institutional partisanship outpaces rigorous debate.
I believe we live in a safer world because of the last two weeks. Others may not. But we ought to have the debate.
Calvin Hunt is a 2024 graduate of the School of Public & International Affairs and can be reached at
Image credit: A Peace Conference at the Quai d’Orsay (1919), William Orpen — Wikimedia Commons
Copyright © 2026 The Princeton Tory. All rights reserved.