The Iranian regime’s war of aggression against the United States began shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, under the rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the holding of 52 American hostages.

In 1983, Iranian proxies targeted U.S. forces in Lebanon, including the homicidal bombing of the U.S. embassy (killing 17 Americans), and later that year, bombed barracks in Beirut (murdering 241 U.S. Marines and other U.S. troops). Americans were kidnapped and murdered, including CIA station chief in Beirut William Buckley, who was tortured and killed in 1985; and Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins, hanged in 1989.

Khomeini died in 1989. The war against the Western world, particularly the Zionist State of Israel, continued unabated under his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. airmen.