Thanks to Trump, the Forty-Year Appeasement of Iran Is Over

By E. Jeffrey Ludwig

The assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani is an unusual, possibly aberrant, event. The killing of this individual leader of a sovereign state may lead to all-out war between Iran and the U.S. — or, on the other hand, the assassination may bring an end to the cycle of Iranian violence countered by U.S. and world diplomatic flatulence and appeasement...........

Iran's listing as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department puts it into a special category.  Iran is a behind-the-scenes puppeteer of Hamas operating in Gaza, Hezb'allah operating in Lebanon, and the Houthis operating in Yemen as well as a variety of groups in Iraq.  Not only did Iran held 52 Americans hostage for over a year after the ayatollahs overthrew the Shah in the  1970s, but the Iranians were crucial in the bombing of the U.S. military barracks in Lebanon (1983), the bombing of the Khobar Towers and American troops in Saudi Arabia (1996), the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998), the bombing of the USS Cole (2000), and the attack on the World Trade Center (2001). With this nefarious history, acting through proxies to undermine the security of the West and the U.S. in particular, Iran's designation as a terrorist state — living in the gray area between sovereign legitimacy and terrorist aggression — is warranted and necessary.

In essence, the Iranians have been in an undeclared war with the U.S. since the ayatollahs and their religiously inspired and power-mad henchmen took over the reins of government from the despotic but pro-American Shah in the seventies...........To Read More