The Iranian regime’s war of aggression against the United States began shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, under the rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the holding of 52 American hostages.
In 1983, Iranian proxies targeted U.S. forces in Lebanon, including the homicidal bombing of the U.S. embassy (killing 17 Americans), and later that year, bombed barracks in Beirut (murdering 241 U.S. Marines and other U.S. troops). Americans were kidnapped and murdered, including CIA station chief in Beirut William Buckley, who was tortured and killed in 1985; and Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins, hanged in 1989.
Khomeini died in 1989. The war against the Western world, particularly the Zionist State of Israel, continued unabated under his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. airmen.
Indeed, as U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels found in his 2011 ruling in the Havlish case, Iran has been waging war against the United States for decades. He held Iran, including the ayatollah, responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed 2,977 people, including planning the scheme to crash Boeing jumbo jets, with large fuel capacities, into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, code-named “Shaitan dar Atash” (“Satan in Flames”).
Tehran also supplied improvised explosive devices (IEDs), explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), rockets, military planning and training to U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 to 2021; paid bounties for the murder of Americans; and was responsible for the death of more than 600 U.S. troops. Who can forget how the Iranian regime fired missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq (including on Ain al-Asad base, injuring 100-plus Americans)? Or the more than 100 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria by its proxies?
For two years—from October 2023 to October 2025—Iranian regime-backed militias launched some 500 strikes on U.S. positions in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. The Iranian regime even brazenly plotted to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials.
The autocratic Shi’ite Iranian regime also views itself as being in a state of war with Israel and the Sunni Arab nations, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It seeks to annihilate Israel, control Mecca and dominate the Sunni-controlled countries.
Its enmity toward Israel and Jews is due in no small measure to its political theology, which views Israel as an agent of U.S. and Western culture that’s antithetical to its creed and seeks to eliminate those who don’t submit to its brand of Islamism. It calls the U.S. “Big Satan” and Israel “Little Satan.”
Iran and its proxies have attacked Israel and Jews around the world, including through U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Hezbollah, founded by the Iranian regime in 1982, and FTO Hamas.
The FTO Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) worked with FTO Hamas in planning the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel that led to the slaughter of 1,200 people and took 251 others captive into Gaza. FTO Hezbollah started shelling northern Israel on Oct. 8. FTO Houthis in Yemen fired many thousands of missiles and rockets at Israel.
It is important to remember that Tehran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It has been enriching uranium to the very threshold of weapons-grade, restricting access to U.N. overseers and being declared officially non-compliant in 2025.
The illicit nuclear program, coupled with ballistic-missile development, created unacceptable risks for Israel, America, and, frankly speaking, the world. Even the European Union finally designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in February.
After 12 days of war last June, when the U.S. and Israel joined operations to bomb three nuclear sites in Iran, there was a renewed dedication to eliminating the rest of the rogue nation’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. The good people of Iran rose up and rallied, seeking to unshackle themselves from the oppressive, autocratic terrorist regime of the ayatollah. The time was ripe for action.
Trump tried diplomacy, but it failed to yield any acceptable or reliable results. Then a rare opportunity presented itself when the ayatollah and his top leadership circle were assembled in one place on Feb. 28.
American and Israeli air forces struck with precision, based on exquisite intelligence, and wiped out the senior leadership in one fell swoop.
The Iranian regime’s predictable response was firing ballistic missiles at Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and many U.S. bases, including in Jordan and Iraq.
As I sat in the safe room in Jerusalem waiting for the all clear to sound, I had time to reflect on these matters. I read about how Saudi Arabia, despite its public posture, urged the United States to eliminate the threat.
I was reminded of how midrash Pesikta Rabbati (“Great Sections”) 36:1 presciently describes that in the unsettling times before the Messianic era, the government of Persia would provoke the government of Arabia. The king of Arabia would then seek counsel from Edom (the leader of the Western World—i.e., the United States).
There is a new reality burgeoning in the Middle East, fostered by Washington and Jerusalem—great allies with shared values, trust, loyalty, common security interests and economic ties. The Abraham Accords are a basis to move forward, with other Arab and Muslim-majority countries joining in.
Now is not the time to hesitate. Appeasement has failed. The hope is that this war will usher in a new period of calm and prosperity for the region.
