For awhile now it has been in vogue in America to ignore the real existence of evil in the world. Our cultural choice, when Evil strikes, has been to protest loudly, wring our collective hands, and then move on to the next horrific story to hit the news. Are we lazy? Do we have damaged short term memory? Are we absent the ability to collect evidence over time, to develop a response strategy, or a willingness to say “we are mad as Hell and we are just not taking it anymore”?
There was a time when our collective outrage would erupt over a single American being harmed or killed by any nation or by agents of any nation.
Yet, the chain of national sorrow has grown too long while our national will to seek retribution has diminished. Too often we find ourselves floundering as we did when we lost 13 U.S. military personnel at the Abbey Gate in Kabul. I recall the empty words of then President Biden who proclaimed “We will not forgive, and we will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” Too often, when our resolve has been tested it has been found to be strong words, empty threats, and little, if any consequences.
Current polls show only 1 in 4 Americans strongly support our current actions in Iran. I have to believe this is mostly due to our propensity to quickly forget transgressions and our habit of moving on. Lest we have forgotten, here is a summary of just some of the Evils Iran has either committed or funded since 1979. Remember these when you hear opportunistic politicians posturing themselves as voices of opposition. Remember too how the Iran regime has responded by attacking their neighbor countries, hitting civilian targets and killing innocent civilians as well.
Sometimes the best response to Evil is decisive actions. Now is one of those times. The information is there for the world to consider. To never respond is a response inviting this list to grow.
Iranian Evil Partial Timeline from WhiteHouse.org
Here is only a partial record of the Iranian regime’s blood-soaked war on Americans:
- November 1979: Iranian students, backed by the regime, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran — taking 66 Americans hostage in a 444-day standoff.
- April 1983: The Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed terrorist group, carried out a suicide car bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans.
- October 1983: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 241 U.S. military personnel — including 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel — in a truck bombing at a Marine compound in Beirut.
- March 1984: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists kidnapped CIA station chief William Buckley on his way to work in Beirut, ultimately killing him the following year.
- September 1984: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 23 innocent people — including two American service members — in a car bomb attack at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut.
- December 1984: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists hijacked Kuwait Airways Flight 221 en route to Pakistan, diverting it to Tehran — where they brutally tortured and killed two American officials.
- June 1985: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847 on its way from Athens to Rome, torturing a U.S. Navy diver before shooting him point blank in the head and tossing his body onto the Beirut airport tarmac.
- July 1989: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed U.S. Marine Col. William Higgins after kidnapping him the previous year while serving with a United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
- April 1995: Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorists killed eight people — including one American citizen — in a car bomb attack in the Gaza Strip.
- August 1995: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing an American and three other passengers, and wounding more than 100 others.
- February 1996: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber blew up another bus in Jerusalem, killing three Americans and wounding three other Americans.
- March 1996: A suicide bomber linked to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups killed 20 people — including two Americans — in a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv shopping center.
- May 1996: Iran-backed terrorists killed an American-Israeli dual citizen and wounded another American citizen in the West Bank.
- June 1996: Iran-backed Hezbollah Al-Hijaz terrorists killed 19 U.S. Airmen and wounded nearly 500 others in a truck bombing at a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia.
- September 1997: Iran-backed Hamas suicide bombers blew themselves up at a shopping mall in Jerusalem, killing an American-Israeli dual citizen and wounding seven other American citizens.
- August 1998: Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, facilitated by Iran-backed Hezbollah, simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people — including a dozen American citizens.
- August 2001: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist blew up a Jerusalem pizzeria, killing three Americans.
- January 2002: An Iran-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade terrorist killed an American-Israeli dual citizen in the West Bank.
- July 2002: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist killed five Americans in a bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
- June 2003: An Iran-backed Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 people — including an American citizen — on a bus in Jerusalem.
- October 2003: Iran-backed Popular Resistance Committees terrorists killed three U.S. diplomatic personnel in a bombing in Gaza.
- Between 2003 and 2011: Iran-backed militias killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq — “roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq.”
- August 2003: An Iran-backed Hamas terrorist blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing five Americans and wounding one other American.
- August 2006: Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed American citizen and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Michael Levin during the Second Lebanon War — the only American to die in the conflict.
- January 2007: A dozen men affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force killed five U.S. soldiers and wounded three others in Karbala, Iraq, after disguisingthemselves as U.S. soldiers and entering the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
- March 2007: Former FBI Agent Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran, likely dying in an Iranian prison.
- July 2014: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killedtwo American citizens serving in the IDF.
- October 2015: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed an American citizen and his wife in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank.
- December 2019: Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah terrorists killed an American civilian contractor and wounded several U.S. service members in a rocket attack at K1 Air Base in Kirkuk, Iraq.
- January 2020: 109 U.S. troops sufferedtraumatic brain injuries in an Iranian ballistic missile attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq.
- September 2020: U.S. intelligence indicatedthe Iranian regime was considering a plot to assassinate the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa.
- February 2021: An Iran-backed militia fired a rocket at coalition forces in Erbil, Iraq, wounding a U.S. service member and four U.S. civilian contractors.
- July 2021: Iranian-backed militias woundedtwo U.S. service members in a series of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
- September 2022: An Iranian rocket attack killed an American citizen in Iraqi Kurdistan.
- November 2022: An IRGC captain orchestrated the killing of an American citizen in Baghdad.
- March 2023: An Iranian drone attack killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. service members and another contractor in a strike on a coalition base in Syria.
- October 2023: Iran-backed Hamas terrorists killed 46 Americans and kidnapped at least 12 Americans in the October 7th massacre.
- December 2023: Iran-backed militias wounded three U.S. service members in an attack on Erbil Air Base in Iraq.
- January 2024: Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollahterrorists killed three U.S. service members and wounded more than 40 other service members in a drone attack against the Tower 22 military base in Jordan.
- Between October 2023 and November 2024: Iran and its proxies conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East, wounding more than 180 U.S. service members and killing three service members.
- November 2024: An Iranian national and IRGC asset was charged for plotting to assassinate President Trump.
- June 2025: Iran-backed militias attacked at least three U.S. bases in Syria and two U.S. bases in Iraq.
