Letter to the Editor: Iran needs no excuse to attack America

Published 1:00 pm Wednesday, May 6, 2026

An April 29 letter, “Expect Iran to strike back,” warns that Iran will seek to avenge the U.S. attack on its nuclear weapons program, military and leaders and that we did wrong by this attack. But it ignores 40-plus years of Iranian attacks on Americans and its aggressive quest for nuclear weapons.

The Shia Twelverism branch of Islam is the official religion of Iran and the foundation of its government. This sect awaits the return of the Mahdi (an Islamic messianic figure) to bring about the apocalyptic end of the current world. The Ayatollah-led regime has consistently fostered chaos that it believes will bring about his appearance and pursued tactics to accelerate it. Iran’s prime goal requires the downfall of the U.S.

The Iranian regime promotes revolutionary efforts and supports terrorist proxies in other nations. The preamble and articles of the Islamic Republic of Iran’ s constitution set forth such goals.

“The Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community … and to assure the continuation of the struggle for the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world.”

The constitution was framed “with all the hope that this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others.”

The army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards “will be responsible…for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way, that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world…”

The constitution leads to an offensive posture. Israel and the U.S. are the prime enemies because they represent the greatest obstacles. Iran declared war on America in 1979 with the U.S. Embassy hostage-taking and has continued with the killing of Americans via its terrorist proxies. Since 1979, the Iranian regime has regularly called for “Death to America.” We should believe that they mean what they say.

American administrations since 1979 hoped that negotiations with Iran would convince it not to develop nuclear weapons. Iran’s diplomatic teams lied and stalled, while its covert nuclear weapons development continued. It developed missiles to deliver such weapons and a massive missile and drone program to shield them. Iran’s efforts were perilously close to producing the nuclear weapons that would have created the massive chaos they seek- by detonating nuclear weapons in one or more American seaport cities, or firing nuclear-tipped missiles into Israel and Western Europe. The “Mutually Assured Destruction” (balance of power) nuclear war policy of the U.S. has worked with Russia and China, but would not have deterred the Iranian death cult from using nuclear weapons.

Some may think the U.S. should have waited for an Iranian nuclear bomb to detonate in an American harbor, killing millions- that was a real near-term possibility (until the U.S. and Israel struck Iran). But after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Twin Towers terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, we have said America would “never again” be taken by surprise.

Kristopher Galvin

Black Diamond