The year was 1979, and Iran experienced its most dramatic governmental change in history. A revolution overthrew the Shah of Iran, who had received U.S. backing. The new government, based on the principle of the guardianship of the jurists, who serve as head of state and in various powerful roles, referred to the country as the Islamic Republic of Iran.
For many years, since its founding, the regime has violently suppressed and ill-treated its citizens. It has unleashed violent crackdowns on protests against the government, conducted mass executions and torture of its own people, suppressed women, censored media, and inspired deeply-rooted hatred against the United States, Israel, and their people. Although the American and Israeli attack on Iran was unprecedented, and it will lead to widespread death and destruction while gambling on the chances of a total regional war, ultimately, the attack had to happen in order to give the Iranian people a chance at liberation and protect American interests worldwide.
The regime has launched several state-sponsored campaigns of violent crackdowns aimed at exterminating the political and religious oppositions within Iran. For example, from 1981 to 1982, under the leadership of Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran unleashed a violent killing on its own people which the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran categorized as crimes against humanity and genocide. The killings came along with a wider campaign of aiming to eliminate political and religious opponents, including members of several leftist groups and groups that protested against the newly established Islamic Republic. Many members of religious minorities, such as members of the Baha’i faith, were killed. As a result, thousands of people, including hundreds of children, were detained, tortured, and slaughtered based on charges of “waging war against God” and “apostasy.” More than 3,400 lives were lost to the new Iranian government.
Between that 1981-82 massacre and today, the Iranian regime has unleashed several more crackdowns on protests, some of them violent and even deadly. They include the 1988 executions of political prisoners, the 2009 Green Movement protests, and, in 2022, the Mahsa Amini protests. The regime has unleashed terror upon its own people from its foundation. Most recently, from late 2025 through 2026, Iran has perpetrated massacres of Iranian civilians, deploying its own security forces (IRGC) as well as foreign militias. During the massacres, Iran has used major internet blackouts to obstruct its citizens from organizing protests and reporting injuries and deaths. It has gone so far as to kill at least 3,000 people (official Iranian Government estimate) and possibly even tens of thousands (UN Special Rapporteur on Iran).
The Iranians have also targeted Americans on several occasions while often chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” In 1983, the Islamic Jihad Organization, with support from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and possibly the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, launched two suicide bombing attacks on American and French barracks in Lebanon. American and French troops were serving as part of a peacekeeping force alongside Italy to oversee a ceasefire during the Lebanese Civil War. The suicide attack led to great loss of life, including the death of 241 United States military personnel. Iran has frequently used proxy groups such as Hezbollah to unleash terror on Americans abroad. For example, in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, Iranian-backed Hezbollah used a truck bomb to attack the towers. As a result, 19 American service members were killed, and nearly 500 people were injured, including many Americans. The regime has, for many years, unleashed terror upon its own people, Americans, and people abroad, with or without its direct involvement.
As the war on Iran rages on, it is important to acknowledge that there must be a clear objective in this campaign, and the Trump administration has never provided one, let alone a well-defined plan to achieve it. It is important that a radical regime such as Iran never hoists an atomic weapon, but we must also realize that the reason no nuclear weapons deal exists as of today is because in 2018, during his first term, Donald Trump tore up Obama’s 2015 deal with Iran. Although the war will lead to hundreds and possibly thousands of lives lost, we must realize that the time has come for a regime change in Iran. After decades of government suppression and the collapse of the Iranian rial, the country’s currency, thousands of Iranians have risen to protest the Islamic regime. They must now seize the moment, with the support of the United States, to establish a new regime and fulfill the potential of Iran.
