Iran Has Been at War With Us for 46 Years

Front Page Magazine ^ | June 19, 2025 | Daniel Greenfield

[E. Pluribus Unum]

“America can’t do a damn thing against us,” Ayatollah Khomeini bragged while holding our hostages.

The Carter administration had undermined the Shah’s government in favor of the Islamists who seized power and then prevented the embassy’s Marine guards from defending the facility and the people inside against the Muslim ‘student’ groups who claimed to be coming in peace.

The “peaceful” student activists took over our embassy and held our people hostage.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei taunted President Trump with the same slogan in June after being asked to give up Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “Our response to the US nonsense is clear: they cannot do a damn thing in this matter,” he echoed his regime’s founder.’

Carter’s failure to defend Americans had turned Khomeini’s taunt into a confident slogan.

America couldn’t stop its diplomats and soldiers from being taken hostage and paraded through the streets. In subsequent decades, future administrations couldn’t stop other Americans from being taken hostage again, tortured and executed. By the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian IEDs alone had accounted for as many as 1,000 American victims.

Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s IRGC terror mastermind, had thoughtthat America couldn’t do a damn thing. In January 2020, President Trump taught him otherwise with a Reaper drone.

It was the first time in a long time that America had done a “damn thing” about Iran.

In 1983, Iranian backed terrorists set off truck bombs in Beirut that killed 220 US Marines and 21 other servicemembers. Mohsen Rafiqdoost, Khomeini’s bodyguard who helped found Iran’s IRGC terror force, boasted that, “both the TNT and the ideology, which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marines headquarters, were provided by Iran.”

[Tell It Right]

Indeed. If USA gets involved in a land war in Iran it would be over for Republicans. I gaurantee it.

And if the U.S. gets hit by an asteroid it would be ugly. Neither of which will happen under Trump's watch.

By the way, one thing noticeably missing from the article is Operation Praying Mantis in 1988, which killed 56 Iranians, sunk one Iranian frigate and damaged another, sunk three speedboats, damaged two oil platforms. In the end half of Iran's surface capability was sunk or crippled. At least on that day we fought back in a for real manner.

[doc maverick]

Do you feel comfortable with Iran having the capacity to nuke France, the UK and the USA?
Considering that the shiites believe the USA and most western nations are satanic, even your magic horse won’t save you.

[Bayard]

The USA is not the caretakers of the World. Sure I would feel sorry for that, but thats just the random hypotheticals that don’t amount to a serious waste of time, like Iraq and Afghanistan was.

USA is not the responsible for preventing every nutcase doing evil.

[vpintheak]

You’re just fine man. I don’t understand how someone many people get so upset and start name calling because you have a different opinion. That’s a tactic of the left and shouldn’t be duplicated here.

[vpintheak]

That’s was my point on another thread. It is disingenuous to say Iran was almost there. Well done.

[doc maverick]

The Ayatollah is not thinking in random hypotheticals.
As far as he is concerned, we are demonic.
He thinks you’re demonic too.
I’m not comfortable with the Ayatollah’s regime having a nuclear weapon pointed at me. If you feel comfortable with it,Bayard, I’m inclined to believe you have a death wish for yourself. So be it.

[lightman]

About time that some bully pulpits start sounding off.

I had just begun to vote when we are subjected to 444 days of humiliation.

Regime change is four and half decades overdue.

[rlmorel]

You might appreciate this link to Ward Carroll and his discussion with Defense One Deputy Editor Brad Peniston:
LINK: The U.S. Navy's Savage 8-Hour War Against Iran

And:
LINK: US Navy Documentary: Operation Praying Mantis

What was interesting is that it was the first time that real data-linking via networks had been used between E-2s and Surface Ships.

[zeestephen]

If Ronald Reagan had been President in 1979, he would have invaded Iran, and hunted down every one of those rag heads from Paris.

[Tell It Right]

Thanks for the info

[rlmorel]

It was an interesting time for sure.

[piasa]

It had 4 letters and a lot of fellow travelers.

[piasa]

Why don’t you actually read the entire article, then comment?

[nitzy]

Anyone who rationally looks at the US relationship with Iran cannot ignore that we created this problem.

We overthrew a democratically elected government and installed the Shah. THAT was the start of the war. It’s no different than when we overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014 and installed a western friendly government. THAT is also what started the Ukraine/Russia war

Instead of learning from our past mistakes, we try more meddling and regime change wars.

Who is controlling our country?????

Which Americans are benefiting from these wars????

[equaviator]

I vaguely remember the sense of urgency over it on the evening news as it was happening but I was just a kid who didn’t have current events as a distraction. I also remember the Detroit riots 6 months before, and even that wasn’t enough to curb my enthusiasm until I saw it on the cover of Life Magazine. That, the shooting execution of a Viet Cong spy in the street at the onset of the TET offensive and the My Lai massacre. It was one rude awakening after another.

[Wallace T.]

You have to wonder if Iran has not had atomic bombs for some time. If North Korea and Pakistan have developed them, so has Iran. However, they lack the ability to deliver them or to mass produce to get to 200-300 bombs. However, they are likely developing those capacities. That fact, plus the existence of strong but underground anti-mullah resistance, made Netanyahu decide to initiate a war. If Iran falls, Israel will be in the most secure position it has been in since its foundation.