On November 4, 1979, “students” took over the U.S. embassy in Iran and held the occupants of the embassy for 444 days. In case you were not aware, the taking of an embassy is, by international law, an act of war. Officials of the Iranian government allowed the occupation, taking, as far as anyone can tell, no efforts to relieve the situation. What nation would allow “students” to overtake an embassy (under international law, an act of war) for 444 days?
Operation Eagle Claw, an effort to rescue the hostages in April of 1980 failed due to numerous failures too intricate to describe here. Iran freed our embassy personnel on January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. While hindsight is easy, there is still considerable speculation that if Jimmy Carter had been able to free the hostages, he might have won the presidential election for another term.
Since then, Iran has sought to become nuclear power applying centrifuges to extract weapons-grade uranium, probably using the uranium hexafluoride technique. While Iran claimed that their facilities were “hidden” it is not all that difficult to find such facilities, as they consume a great amount of power to extract the weapons-grade uranium. Follow the power cables. In June of 2025, the U.S. began Operation Midnight Hammer “significantly damaging Iranian nuclear facilities and military infrastructure.”
Iran can’t claim alliance with their fellow Islamic and Arab states, because they retaliated by attacking The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan. All of those states have decided that it is better to be friends with the U.S. than with Iran. Iran has been seeking a “new, independent global order” but that new order hasn’t materialized. From all appearances, Iran is almost alone, with some alliance with Russia and China, neither of which has offered any significant aid to them in this conflict. I would theorize that China’s interests in Iran are largely based on oil, where 12% to 15% of China’s oil comes from. China has not been sharing it’s wealth, it sees any alliance with any country as strictly an economic affiliation. One fact that is worth sharing: President Trump has left instructions that if he is assassinated, Iran is to be “obliterated.”
The attack on Iran seems to be a retaliation against the Iranian government, not the Iranian citizens. The dictatorship of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has taken a grave toll on the citizens of Iran. Thousands of Iranians have been killed because they seek changes in public policy, and the zealous religious autocracy will have none of it. Iran would not be the first nation that the U.S. has freed, by literally the force of war. If the efforts of the U.S. military, not to mention the forces of Israel succeed in removing the Islamic dictatorship from the people of Iran, it is yet to be seen what type of government might succeed their present theocracy. I would recommend a constitutional representative democracy, but I freely admit my biases.
Some time ago, Iran’s leader Ruhollah Khomeini said “America can’t do a damn thing against us.” Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, also used that slogan. With that maxim, Iran has funded terrorists and killed Americans every chance they could get. It turns out that America can do something, and it is doing so in March of 2026. It is time for the Iranian people to take back their government, stop being a threat to every nation it “disagrees” with, and hopefully, speak peace instead of war with the rest of the world.
