Why We Fight Iran

Part 1

Matt Walsh, a prominent podcaster who works for the Daily Wire, asked an important question concerning the February 28, 2026, U.S.-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran:

As always I only support military action anywhere, in any context, if it directly serves the interests of American citizens... What nobody has even come close to sufficiently explaining is how this war will first and foremost directly benefit American citizens…

I don’t know Matt Walsh – and I am sure he has never heard of me – but since this does seem to be a common concern regarding U.S. involvement in the Iranian conflict, I will attempt to answer his question.

Mr. Walsh, I believe that the United States, like all other nations, has the following national interests:

1. Assuring its own physical security and its citizenry from foreign attack; 
2. Protecting its own economic well-being;
3. Bolstering the interests and security of its allies to incentivize pro-U.S. policies by other nations.

I also strongly believe that attacking the radical Shia (Twelver) Muslim theocratic-led Islamic Republic (IR) of Iran furthers all three of these U.S. national interests.

The IR has been and continues to be a danger to U.S. citizens. It has been at war with the U.S. since 1979. That year, the IR assisted Iranian students who breached the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized 66 American hostages. This was a violation of international law and an actual invasion of U.S. territory. The Iranian Foreign Minister indicated official Iranian government support for the seizure when he said, “The action of the students enjoys the endorsement and support of the government.”  

Reza Kahlili, an IR defector, has confirmed that the Iranian government was involved in the embassy seizure.

In the 1980s, the IR set up the terror militia Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IR recruited Lebanese Shias to join that group, providing them with money, weapons, equipment, and training.  Then it ordered them into action, sometimes even directing the actual assaults. In 1983, a Hezbollah terrorist rammed his car filled with explosives into the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans. That same year, an explosive-filled truck driven by another Hezbollah terrorist crashed into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and exploded, massacring 220 Marines and 21 other U.S. personnel. In 1984, Hezbollah kidnapped CIA station chief William Buckley in Beirut, torturing him and sending videotapes of Buckley to the Americans. In the last tape, Buckley was “a gibbering wretch. His words were often incoherent; he slobbered and drooled and, most unnerving of all, he would suddenly scream in terror, his eyes rolling helplessly and his body shaking.”

In 1985, Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847, en route from Athens to Rome. On the flight was a U.S. Navy diver named Robert Stethem.  Ken Stethem, Robert’s brother, whom I had the honor of working with, told me that the skyjackers brought Robert Stethem into the cockpit and beat him mercilessly with the metal seatbelts, demanding that he scream into the radio so that the U.S. would know that the terrorists were serious. Robert refused and was eventually killed, his body dumped on the tarmac.

It is also important to realize that Hezbollah finances much of its terrorism using a sophisticated drug-trafficking operation in Latin America. This drug trade is a major danger to ordinary American civilians within the U.S.

Other IR-created and controlled terror groups have murdered even more Americans. In 1996, a suicide truck blew up the Khobar Towers, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans. And from 2003 through 2011, in Iraq, Iranian-created Iraqi militias killed at least 603 U.S. troops, according to the Pentagon. 

The IR has also plotted numerous attacks against American civilians within the continental U.S. In 2011, Iran planned to bomb a Georgetown restaurant to kill a prominent Saudi diplomat, which might have killed hundreds of Americans. In the 2020s, Iran plotted to assassinate (then) former President Donald Trump and other former Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Iran envoy Brian Hook, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Reportedly, the IR was planning more violence towards the U.S., and the Trump administration’s negotiations with it were going nowhere.

Each of these actions by the IR and its proxies is an act of war against the United States.

There are also other indications that the IR truly despises, and sees itself at war with, the United States. The IR educates its children to treat our nation as an infidel country and as the Satanic enemy of Shia Islam. Every year since 1979, on November 4th, the day the U.S. Embassy was seized, the IR sponsors a “Death to America” day. The IR also frequently refers to the United States as “The Great Satan.” The IR promotes demonstrations where the American flag is burned or trampled upon.  

Finally, it is important to address the IR’s drive to develop nuclear weapons. The IR is led by radical religious Shia (Twelver) Muslims who uniquely believe – unlike all other peoples, including other Muslims – that “MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction by nuclear weapons) is not a constraint; it is an inducement.”  This is a uniquely dangerous philosophy.

The IR has also been developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are only necessary to strike nations as far away as the U.S. 

Therefore, the U.S. decision to attack the IR, targeting its troops and leaders for destruction, could deter, punish, and even destroy an enemy regime with a proven track record of killing or harming Americans, which certainly planned future attacks, and thus serves our national interest in protecting the homeland and the American people.

To be continued…