The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Ever since taking U.S. embassy staff hostage in 1979, the Iranian regime has led an international spree of bombings, hijackings, and other terrorist attacks on Americans and Westerners. Now politicians and diplomats, who put up with Iranian aggression for years, are loudly promising to block IranÕs pursuit of nuclear weapons on the idea that without such weapons in Iranian hands, everything will be hunky-dory. But the truth is that Iran long ago proved itself a threat that must be stopped; a nuclear arsenal would only make it a far worse threat. For three decades the ayatollahs of Iran have been using proxies Ð such as Hezbollah Ð to carry out murderous attacks. IranÕs Revolutionary Guard helped create and train Hezbollah, which hijacked a TWA airliner and which kidnapped and tortured to death American citizens. Iran pulled the strings behind the 1983 bomb attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon and later the barracks of U.S. Marines, killing 241 Americans. Iran also orchestrated the 1996 car bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, where 19 U.S. servicemen died. ThereÕs more: The 9/11 Commission found that Òsenior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives,Ó and that Ò8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi ÔmuscleÕ operatives traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.Ó During the Afghanistan war, Iran welcomed fleeing al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Today, according to the U.S. military, Iran is running training camps for Iraqi insurgents. Iran has been conducting a proxy war against America, the inspiration of which is IranÕs goal of imposing Islamic totalitarianism globally. Iran is a leading sponsor of jihadists and the sworn enemy of the West. But too many diplomats and commentators refuse to judge Iran. They regard its past hostility as a string of disconnected crises, unrelated to IranÕs ideological agenda. They behave as if IranÕs acquisition of a nuclear weapon would be the decisive event. But that particular weapon Ð despite its power Ð cannot be the whole story, since we donÕt worry about other countries, such as France and Britain, having nukes. The rarely admitted difference is that the regime in Iran would eagerly press the launch button. The U.S. should face the real character and conduct of the Iranian regime, before it is too late.
