The great mid-20th-century Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr developed a political theory, dubbed “Christian realism,” that sought to synthesize the demands of Christian ethics with the demands of conducting foreign policy in a dangerous world. Decrying the utopian thinking that led some devout Christians to pacifism, Niebuhr supported American efforts in World War II and the cold war. Taking on the master’s mantle, some of today’s foreign-policy realists appeal to his critique of the notion that democracy can be spread easily across the globe, which they use as an argument against democracy promotion itself; according to Paul D. Miller, they lack a proper understanding of Niebuhr’s ideas:

[The] flaw in the realists’ reading of Niebuhr is that they elide his Christian sensibility, and so are unable to see the entire scope of his thought. . . . Niebuhr is strident, unapologetic, and explicit in his defense of democracy—a defense that suggests democratic ideals have universal applicability and should be the aspiration of all societies.

[And] Niebuhr goes further, in a direction that should make today’s libertarians and conservatives uncomfortable. Government, he wrote, “must guide, direct, deflect, and re-channel conflicting and competing forces in a community in the interest of a higher order. It must provide instruments for the expression of the individual’s sense of obligation to the community as well as weapons against the individual’s anti-social lusts and ambitions.” No autocracy can anticipate, invent, or create all the things that every individual might if given the chance. Autocracy shuts the door on human potential. Democracy opens it up.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.