In 1979, right after the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah and replaced his largely secular regime with a fanatically theocratic one, Iran effectively declared war on both Israel and America. As Amin Sharifi has recently observed in a piece at the Gatestone Institute, this hostility has never been superficial but rather is dyed-in-the-wool:
From the earliest days of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, its goal has been stated openly and its doctrine deeply embedded in the regime’s identity. No other issue, domestic or foreign, was as consistent, prioritized or systematically pursued as Tehran’s hostility toward Israel, the country blocking its way to destroying the United States. To that end, Iran spent decades preparing “forward bases” across the Middle East and in South America, especially Venezuela.
Attacking Israel has been seen by Iran’s regime as the first step toward defeating the entire West. “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” are chanted after every Friday prayer, taught in schools, and plastered across the country’s public spaces. Every major street has murals promoting hostility toward Israel and the U.S.
Attacks Since the 1979 Declaration of War
Nor has this hostility merely been expressed in words. The kinetic part of Iran’s war with America began on November 4, 1979, when so-called students stormed the American embassy and took 66 hostages in what was known as the Iran Hostage Crisis. A few managed to escape with the help of the Canadian ambassador to Iran, Kenneth Taylor, but the last 52 were not released until January 20, 1980, right after President Regan’s inauguration. (RELATED: My Own Operation Midnight Hammer — Iran)
This hostage taking was only the beginning of Iranian hostilities against America. Iran and its proxies have been attacking and killing American soldiers and civilians ever since. Remember the 1983 terror attack in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 American personnel? In 2023, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) located and translated a bombshell interview in which Sayyed Issa Tabatabai, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in Lebanon, admitted the Iranian regime’s role in that mass murder.
These were just two prominent incidents in a huge and ongoing campaign. It must be remembered that Iran was also involved in planning the 9/11 terror attack, and its proxies have targeted U.S troops in the Middle East innumerable times over the years. Yet somehow, though Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, though Iran has been designated by the U.S. State department as the world’s biggest state sponsor of terror and though, after the 9/11 terror attack, President George W. Bush declared a War on Terror, America has consistently refused to acknowledge the fact that America too is formally if not substantively at war with Iran.
What does it mean to say that Iran is at war with America while America is not at war with Iran? It is said that America and the West have been appeasing Iran all this time, but if this is appeasement, then it can only be understood as the product of double-think, denial, and out-and-out schizophrenia. (RELATED: Obama Trusted Iran — Israel Didn’t)
In a sense, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the West has effectively been using Israel as a human shield.
One did not have to wait for the recent report by Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that Iran is in violation both of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty — to which, risibly, it is a signatory — as well as the JCPOA, the so-called Iran nuclear deal. All of this has been crystal clear ever since Israel acquired the Iranian nuclear archive on January 31, 2018, when Mossad agents infiltrated a warehouse in Tehran and stole half a ton of documents related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
What Israel began to do in Iran a week ago is not a new war. That war has been going on since Iran declared it in 1979. Properly speaking, it is a major operation in that ongoing war.
Nevertheless, the debate about whether America should get involved in Israel’s Rising Lion operation has been framed as if this would be a new war. Since America has never formally declared war on Iran, even though Iran has long been at war with America, this is technically true. America has been caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is George Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq, and the hard place is Barack Obama’s deceptive rhetoric, his false choice between boots-on-the-ground war and appeasement.
Before President Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites, it was becoming increasingly clear that one way or another, Israel was going to win its war with Iran with or without America’s help. Israel has always fought its own wars, but before America’s strikes, it was commonly understood that America could help enormously by using its high-altitude B-2 stealth strategic bombers armed with the larger 30,000-pound (GBU-57) bunker buster bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear facility buried deep under a mountain at Fordow.
Israel does not have this technology — no one but America has — and left it its own devices, it would undoubtedly take longer and would certainly be harder to do this job by other means. What is at stake here is not the final outcome of this war, but, as Israel’s Brigadier General Amir Avivi has pointed out, America’s stature as the leader of the free world.
There are many countries, including the modern, forward-looking Sunni Muslim states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, that are hoping that Israel will finally eliminate the threat that Iran poses to their peace and prosperity. As America helps Israel in this operation, it will enhance America’s reputation as a reliable ally and friend and restore deterrence vis-à-vis Russia and China, who have conspicuously stayed out of this conflict but are watching it closely. By the time this is over, neither President Donald Trump nor Prime Minister Netanyahu will likely get Nobel Peace Prizes, but instead they will both have cemented their place as world historical figures.
Does Israel want a regime change in Iran? Of course, it does, and so do all peace-loving nations in the world, from Saudi Arabia to Argentina. Despite the scare tactics of the radical isolationists, Iran will not become another Iraq. The Iranian people are cultured and peace-loving and have no quarrel with Israel or the Jewish diaspora. In fact, the Iranian and Jewish diasporas are closely bonded.
During Toronto’s huge 56,000-person Walk with Israel march in May, there were three prominent non-Jewish contingents: Christians, Indigenous Canadians, and Iranians who like to call themselves Persians. After the mullahs are overthrown, great numbers of talented and prosperous diaspora Iranians are bound to return to their ancestral homeland to help rebuild it and make it part of the family of nations. Unlike the Gazans, who overwhelmingly support Hamas, the vast majority of Iranians hate their theocratic masters.
This has been a long war of Iran against the world, and it looks like it’s finally coming to an end. We still don’t know exactly what the “day after” will look like, but we do know that not only are the modern Sunni Gulf states hoping that Israel achieves its goals, but so too are peace-loving people all over the globe.
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