Because religions make claims about the truth, the beliefs of any one religion necessarily contradict some of the claims of another. Yet devotees of different faiths have found ways to live together in peace and even engage in meaningful religious dialogue. Daniel Johnson delves into the problems inherent in interreligious dialogue in general, and Jewish-Catholic dialogue in particular, and speculates about the possibilities of including Muslims. He writes:

Perhaps the overriding intellectual imperative of a globalized world, in which no culture can hope to isolate itself or to avoid the encounter with others, is to make it possible for those holding different and potentially antagonistic beliefs to live in peace with one another. This is a particular duty for those whose vocation it is to teach with authority, whether sacerdotal or academic; yet it is a duty that is almost always shirked. . . . Taking responsibility not only for what is taught but for what follows from the teaching, for what is done in the name of religion or ideology, seems to pose an almost insuperable challenge for the guardians of doctrine.

Yet doctrine, “teaching” or “that which is taught,” implies, like the cognate term “doctor,” worldly as well as spiritual authority. . . . How then may the arbiters and exponents of doctrine be persuaded to soften their orthodoxy sufficiently to open up a space in which competing claims to truth may be resolved or not, as the case may be, but in any case without bloodshed?

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days