As Iran‘s dictatorship continues to attack its own people, with as many as 12,000 to 20,000 civilians slaughtered by government thugs in recent weeks, the prospect of American involvement grows. The same theocrats that have been slaughtering their own people have also vowed to destroy the United States and have repeatedly attacked and murdered our fellow Americans.
Nearly everyone knows that Iran calls the U.S. the “Great Satan” since Ayatollah Khomeini seized control of the country in 1979. But how many understand the depth of their enmity? How much of the “Islamic Republic” is built upon an all-consuming lust to hurt and kill Americans? I know. I remember. I was born there.
Growing up in Iran was terrifying in a way that most Westerners can’t imagine. In a country that had been fashion-forward in the 1970s, women were forced to go from miniskirts to hijabs almost overnight. As a Jew, I was forced to hide my faith. I remember innocent people being beaten in the schools and in the streets for their religion.
In the end, my family decided that remaining was too dangerous. We escaped on the back of a pickup truck, hiding under corn and burlap, coming under fire from regime agents before making it across the Pakistani border, and ultimately finding a new life in America, this blessed land of freedom.
It was a cruel dictatorship that we escaped, and from the very beginning, that dictatorship fixated its hatred on the U.S. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says publicly that the U.S. is worse than Iblis — Islam’s name for the Devil — because the Koran says that Iblis only seduces people, while the U.S. “both seduces and murders people.” These are loaded terms, as the ayatollah speaks as both his country’s political and religious leader.
Iran’s theocratic tyranny was born in an act of violence against the U.S. The U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized by a regime-enabled mob of “students,” and the American diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.
To this day, the Iranian dictatorship marks the anniversary of this event as a public holiday, with American flags burned in cities across the country as crowds chant “Death to America,” a recurring, and deadly serious, regime slogan. As recently as November 2025, the Iranian parliament itself chanted this venomous phrase, and the supreme leader himself defended it. In 2019, the regime painted a series of inflammatory murals on the side of the old embassy building, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the takeover of what it calls “the den of spies.”
For decades, Iran has engaged in attacks against American servicemembers and civilians across the world. In 2020, Iranian forces attacked U.S. troops at Al-Asad air base in Iraq with ballistic missiles, causing over 100 traumatic brain injuries. Iran has repeatedly attacked U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, and Qatar. Three servicemembers were killed and 40 injured by an Iranian drone in Jordan in 2024. A captain in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps faces federal charges for orchestrating the murder of an American citizen in front of his wife at an English-language institute in Iraq in 2022.
Iranian agents have been arrested in the U.S. for pursuing murder-for-hire schemes against American citizens, including President Donald Trump, whom the regime has directly threatened with assassination as recently as Jan. 14, 2026. The mullahs have made multiple attempts to assassinate the Iranian-American journalist and prominent human rights activist Masih Alinejad. In July 2025, the U.S. and 13 of its key allies, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Canada, publicly accused Tehran of organizing a wave of assassination attempts, abductions, and intimidation campaigns against individuals living in Europe and North America.
Then there is Iran’s unconcealed support for international terrorism. There is compelling evidence that Iran enabled the movement of al Qaeda operatives into and out of Afghanistan prior to 9/11, including some of the future hijackers. Iran enabled the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, during which more than 1,200 people were slaughtered by terrorists, including 46 Americans. Iran has intentionally destabilized countries across the Middle East by sponsoring local terrorist militias, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Iran is the primary sponsor for the Houthi terrorists in Yemen, who have intermittently shut down international shipping through the vital Red Sea corridor, costing the global economy billions.
IRAN’S NEXT CHAPTER MUST BE WRITTEN IN FREEDOM
When Trump warned this week that Iran has been crossing red lines with its savage massacre of civilians, he was speaking with moral clarity. Iran has been crossing these lines for a long time. The Iranian dictatorship’s forces are trained to mow down ordinary people at the ayatollah’s request and even engage in horrific sexual violence (like gang rape and rape with objects) against female political prisoners.
The U.S. is both morally and strategically obligated to support a free Iran and to help end the ayatollah’s tyranny. For the millions of Iranians yearning to breathe free, and for America’s future well-being, we must act in our own interest to destroy our most determined and, in many ways, most dangerous foe. Supporting a free Iran is not just an Iranian issue. It is also an urgent American imperative.
Dr. Sheila Nazarian is a Los Angeles physician whose family escaped to America from Iran. She starred in the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Skin Decision: Before and After.