Predictable as death, taxes, yesterday’s news, and hoping Trump fails, Democrats can’t resist criticizing the military campaign in Iran. Yet when objectively viewing the threatening malignancy of that failed state, all but blind-faith progressives could fail to recognize the justifiably epic motivations for Operation Epic Fury.
The first such motivation is that since 1979, when Muslim clerics viewing America as the “Great Satan” seized power, the Iranian theocracy and its proxies have done enormous harm to Americans. The earliest example occurred shortly thereafter when Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
That longest hostage ordeal in U.S. diplomatic history was followed by the suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, in April 1983. That attack, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support, training, and direction, was the first large-scale strike against a U.S. diplomatic facility by Islamist militants.
Signaling a new era of attacks on American targets, that bombing foreshadowed an even worse attack by Hezbollah barely six months later.
In October 1983, Iran supplied the financing, explosives, training, intelligence, and logistical support for the bombing of a Marine barracks also in Beirut, killing 241 soldiers and wounding 128 others. Undeniably carried out by operatives aligned with Hezbollah, it was the deadliest single-day attack on Marines since World War II.
Still another attack by Hezbollah, inspired, supported, and supervised by Iran, occurred in 1996 at the Khobar building complex in Saudi Arabia. It was there that a truck bomb was detonated, killing 19 U.S. Airmen and injuring about 500 others.
But Iran’s proxy-led killing spree of Americans did not end in 1996. Between 2005 and 2011, Iranian-supplied munitions were among the deadliest threats to U.S. forces during the Iraq War. During that conflict, Iran manufactured, supplied, and trained Iraqi militias to use Explosively Formed Penetrators, their most sophisticated and lethal roadside bombs designed to kill and maim U.S. service personnel.
These devices killed hundreds of U.S. troops, and thousands more were permanently wounded with amputations, burns, and traumatic brain injuries. And such EFP-related slaughter occurred not only in Iraq, but later in Afghanistan.
However, Iran’s involvement in killing Americans did not end with the Iraq War or Afghanistan. Its support for Hamas’s October 2023 massacre in Israel not only led to the deaths of over a thousand Israelis, but also killed 41 Americans.
And while there is no publicly confirmed proof that Iran planned or ordered that carnage, as Hamas’s long-term sponsor, providing them with funding, weapons, training, and technology, it almost certainly did.
As if motivations for Operation Epic Fury weren’t obvious enough, in retaliation for killing Qassem Soleimani, the key figure enabling the EFP campaign in Iraq, Iran plotted to assassinate U.S. officials. The Iranian hit list included former National Security Advisor John Bolton, past Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and, very likely, President Trump.
Yet, while a strong case can be made for Iran’s harm to Americans, its crimes against its own people are greater still.
During Iran’s nationwide protests in January, most estimates indicate that up to 36,000 freedom-seeking protesters were killed by live fire from military-grade weapons. And if that bloodshed wasn’t enough, 53,000 others were arrested, and many were reportedly tortured or, following sham trials, executed.
But the most epic motivation for Operation Epic Fury is none of the above. The most convincing rationale for overthrowing the current tyrannical regime in Iran is its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons. That they were nearing that goal, threatening not only the Middle East but the entire world, is irrefutable.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, by mid-2025, Iran amassed roughly 972 pounds of 60 percent enriched uranium. This stockpile far exceeded peaceful civilian levels of enhancement and was fast approaching weapons-grade material at 90 percent.
That amount of uranium, if further processed, could yield enough fissile material for about 10 nuclear bombs. And with no peaceful reason to enrich uranium beyond 60 percent, which was exactly what Iran was doing, that is the strongest evidence of their intent to create weapons-grade uranium in weeks, not years.
Even so, the Trump administration offered Iran many chances to avoid a military confrontation if only it ended support for regional militias and disbanded any further attempts to enrich its uranium stockpile. At every turn, they refused.
In fact, Iran’s Parliament defiantly issued a statement saying there could be “no limitation” on their nuclear development and that they had the right to enrich uranium “up to 93 percent,” well beyond any usable civilian levels of enhancement.
Furthermore, to sweeten the deal, the U.S. also agreed to provide Iran with a permanent supply of reactor-grade fuel for power plants if it agreed to stop all enrichment and eliminate its stockpile of uranium, nearing weapons-grade levels. Still, Iran objected, claiming their enrichment of uranium was their sovereign right and non-negotiable.
So, in giving the Iranians a clear-eyed off-ramp to avoid a military confrontation, all they had to do was stop funding militia groups intent on killing Israelis and Americans. All they had to do was accept our offer of a nearly limitless supply of peacefully enriched uranium to power their nation. And all they had to do was cease production of nuclear bombs.
But in the end, it was all too much for the state sponsors of terrorism to accept, and now America’s military is exposing their epic miscalculation for all to see. That is, except for progressives who remain blind to the forest of motivations to check Iran’s nuclear ambitions and equally sightless by the trees of Trump derangement, obscuring their view.
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