There’s been a great deal of rhetoric regarding the president’s authority to safeguard the United States, both at home and abroad. Politics aside, a world without the militant Iranian theocracy is a much safer place.
Nearly half a century has passed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. For those old enough to remember, it seems like just yesterday that Islamic revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy and took our fellow Americans hostage. Like the Oct. 7 Hamas hostages, the 1979 Islamic Revolution American hostages weren’t released until a Republican president came to office in 1981. In each case, a weak Democrat president allowed Americans to be used as geopolitical pawns for far too long.
The Brookings Institution suggests that the 1979 Islamic Revolution was a Marxist-Islamist movement in the name of the downtrodden. As such, Brookings researchers argue the theocracy’s goals were independence, social justice, and democracy. It’s safe to say that each supreme leader failed miserably in these areas. Like other Marxist movements, the Iranian Islamists were willing to say whatever necessary to gain power. And, like other Marxist movements, they did as they pleased once they were in power.
But where the Islamic Republic exceled was in its self-declared war against Israel and the U.S. I’m not talking about 2026; I’m referencing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s earliest goals of wiping Israel off the map, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s popularized slogan, “Death to America.” In geopolitics, politicians say lots of things, but in the case of Iran, they meant what they said when it came to destroying Israel and the U.S.
Over the past 47 years, the Islamic Republic has been active in direct and indirect global attacks on Israel and the U.S. From the beginning, they formed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to protect the revolution and lead Iranian terror efforts at home and abroad. Beyond the American hostages that they held for 444 days, Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Kuwait, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Iraq killed or wounded thousands of Americans and our allies with little to no response.
I won’t recreate a timeline of Islamic Republic terror highlights, for this News Nation link does that well, showing horrible attacks including bombings, hijackings, kidnappings, torture, etc. But it falls short on describing the global terrorist enterprise led by the IRGC, and the Islamic Republic’s ultimate aspiration of building a nuclear weapons arsenal.
In addition to conventional attacks and influence campaigns, Iran has, since the late ’80s, steadily worked toward the development of nuclear weapons, holding the world hostage several times over the last few decades. This cat and mouse game of nuclear blackmail didn’t work with President Trump. U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said that during recent negotiators, Iranians held firm on what they considered an “inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel.” He went on to say that the Iranians were so bold in the last round of negotiations that they claimed to have approximately 460 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium that could potentially be enriched to weapons grade levels within 10 days.
Nuclear weapons are something the average person can’t readily comprehend. On paper, the technical aspects of building a nuclear weapon sound wonky. It’s hard to imagine what it would look like if a nuclear weapon was detonated in the U.S., Israel, or one of our allies in the Persian Gulf.
Nuclear weapons are in a destructive category of their own. For example, if Iran targeted our State Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., with a crude nuclear weapon, the fireball at the center of the blast would vaporize everything for roughly three city blocks in each direction. This area is depicted in Hiroshima photographs as rubble with only shadows on the concrete showing that an unfortunate human being was there when the Little Boy bomb detonated.
Severe blast damage with 50-90% casualties would extend even further to Choctaw St. in the north, Ryan St. in the east, Clinton Ave. in the south, and I-65 in the west. Moderate blast damage would be next with 5-50% casualties extending beyond the severe blast zone by a few city blocks. This area would be reminiscent of scenes depicted in movies and television with damaged buildings and walking wounded. Then there’s another concentric circle of second- and third-degree burns, followed by a final ring of light blast damage with broken windows and injuries that would extend to Alabama River Pkwy. in the north, just shy of Faulkner University in the east, Seibles Rd. in the south, and slightly beyond Maxwell Air Force Base to the west.
The simulated damage is staggering, but the actual destruction of Hiroshima was even worse. Nuclear weapons also have radioactive fallout that is especially deadly in the first days and weeks following detonation, meaning lingering radiation would kill and wound even more Alabamians for years to come.
For comparison, the roughly 2.5 tons of conventional explosives used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was devastating, but it pales in comparison to the 15,000 ton TNT equivalent blast produced by America’s first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Yet Little Boy was a crude nuclear weapon based on 1940s technology. Later nuclear weapons grew more powerful, with the Soviets testing as much as 50 million tons in a single detonation. You may have just flashbacked to duck-and-cover school drills, but hopefully you realize how dangerous a nuclear armed Iran would be. There’s no question that if Iran had additional time, they could develop a modern nuclear weapons arsenal.
Luckily, for America and our allies, the Islamic Republic of Iran threatened the wrong president. Hopefully, for the last time.
Dr. Tobias Vogt von Heselholt (shortened to “Vote”) is a retired U.S. Army officer, former professor, author, and elected member of the Alabama Republican Executive Committee. For more, see his author page at Amazon.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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