[And Moses said]: “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt, how he confronted you on the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. So it shall come about, when YHVH your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land which YHVH your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall wipe out the mention of the name Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget” (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)
YHVH, the Commander of the armies of Israel (see 1 Samuel 17:25,46), gave military orders to the Jewish people and even placed them in the Bible for good measure: do not forget the genocidal deeds of your enemies, and (as King David instructed Solomon) do not let their grey-haired heads go down to She’ol in peace (1 Kings 2:5-9)!
Does ‘Death to America!’ mean ‘Not our war!’?
We live in different times: forgetfulness and woke pacifism have become de rigeur for many nations, and it has become commonplace and politically correct to tolerate and empower one’s mortal foes. In light of fast-paced developments in the Middle East, it would be helpful to remember and not forget what damage the Islamic Republic of Iran, its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (known in Farsi/Persian as Pasdaran) and its terrorist proxies (which include Lebanese Hezbollah, Gazan Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Iraqi Kata’eb Hezbollah, Yemenite Houthi ansar allah forces, etc.) have done specifically to American armed forces and diplomats for over 46 years, since 1979. Those ostrich-like politicians and commentators who chant ‘Not our flag, not our war!’ seem to have forgotten how many Americans have been murdered by Iran and its proxies over the years, and how – as far as Iran is concerned – this is very much America’s war.
The Sarkha (الصرخة, Arabic for ‘the scream’) is the banner-slogan of one of those proxies, the Yemenite Shi’ite Houthis, and it reads ‘allah is greater! Death to America! Death to Israel! Curses be upon the Jews! Victory to Islam!’ The phrase ‘Death to America!’ was originally popularized by Ayatollah Khomeini in early 1979 (‘Marg bar Âmrikâ’, in Farsi [Persian]) and was used by Pasdaran demonstrators in front of the US Embassy in Tehran, including on November 9, 1979 – the day the Embassy was violently occupied and the 444-day hostage crisis began. This chant is commonplace in government-sponsored demonstrations and in the Iranian Parliament. Less than one year ago, Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in at Iran’s Parliament (the Majles) on July 30, 2024, to the chants ‘Death to America! Death to Israel!’
“Forever war” – at least since 1979
Some talking heads who are content for Iran to continue its development of nuclear weapons have been warning that any US involvement in eradicating the Ayatollah’s nuclear weapons program would lead to ‘a forever war.’ In response, US Senator Tom Cotton (chairman of both the Senate Republican Conference and the Senate Intelligence Committee) recently tweeted “The forever war is the war that Iran has waged against the United States, Israel, and the civilized world since 1979.” The following is a non-comprehensive list of hostile Iranian-guided acts against American troops and diplomats since 1979:
- 1979 – 52 American diplomats were captured during a violent assault on the US Embassy in Tehran and were held hostage for 444 days
- 1983 – On April 18 63 people were killed in the Iran/IRGC-directed bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut. Of these, 17 were American. Eight of these were CIA, including the CIA’s top Middle East analyst and Near East director, Robert Ames, Station Chief Kenneth Haas, James Lewis and most of the CIA’s Beirut staff. Over 120 were wounded.
- 1983 – On October 23, 1983 a suicide truck-bomber (trained by Iran/IRGC) detonated 12,000 pounds (5,400 kg) of TNT at the barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Battalion Landing Team – BLT 1/8) of the 2nd Marine Division, killing 220 marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. This was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast. Thirteen later died of their injuries, and they are counted among the number who died.
- 1984 – On September 20, 1984 the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, with support and direction from Iran and the IRGC, carried out a suicide car bombing using 3,000 pounds (1360 kg) of explosives, targeting the US Embassy annex in East Beirut. A total of 23 people were killed, including two Americans and 1 attacker.
- On September 13, 2023, Sayyed Issa Tabatabai, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in Lebanon, was interviewed by Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). In that interview, Tabatabai said “From the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini], I received approval for the struggle against Israel and even the fatwa [ordering us] to carry out martyrdom operations [ishtihad in the original], and he confirmed this three times. I quickly went to Lebanon and provided what was needed in order to [carry out] martyrdom operations in the place where the Americans and Israelis were” – referring to the three terrorist bombings in 1983 and 1984.
- 1996 – On June 25, a truck bomb was detonated next to the Khobar Towers, part of an eight-story structure housing members of the United States Air Force’s 4404th Wing (Provisional) and close to King Abdulaziz Air Base. A total of 19 American airmen were killed, and 498 of other nationalities were wounded. Approximately 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of plastic explosives, detonated in a shaped charge, with the force of at least 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) of TNT, according to a later assessment of the Defense Special Weapons Agency. The blast was felt 20 miles (32 km) away in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain.
US official statements confirmed that an Iranian-connected group ‘Hezbollah Al-Hejaz’ was responsible for the attack. On 22 December 2006, high court judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Iran and Hezbollah were directly and personally responsible for the attack, stating that the leading experts on Hezbollah presented overwhelming evidence of the group’s involvement and that six captured Hezbollah agents detailed the role of Iranian intelligence and military officials in providing money, explosives, arms and weapons, plans, and maps
A now-declassified secret cable (stored in the National Security Archives) was sent in 1999 by POTUS Bill Clinton to then-Iranian President Mohammed Khatami:
Message to President Khatami from President Clinton: The United Sates Government has received credible evidence that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with members of Lebanese and Saudi Hizballah, were directly involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia of the Khobar Towers military residential complex on June 25, 1996. Nineteen American citizens were killed. The United States views this in the gravest terms.”
- The credible evidence was based on extensive interviews with some half a dozen Saudi suspects, who told investigators they were provided with passports by the Iranian embassy in Syria, that an Iranian general was their handler for the attack, and that they were trained by the IRGC. This information was later suppressed by POTUS Clinton’s National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, based on State Department political considerations. Then-FBI Director Louis Freeh briefed a reporter that the Clinton administration kept his investigators from gaining full cooperation in the Khobar probe in hopes that looking the other way would create a better relationship with Iran.
- 2000 On October 12 an al-Qa’eda terror suicide squad sailed a small boat near the USS Cole, a guided-missile destroyer berthed for a fuel stop in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen sailors were killed, 39 were injured, and the ship was significantly damaged, with a 40 foot (12 m) diameter hole on its port side. A US Federal District Court found Iran complicit through its training of Al-Qaeda, and ordered Iran to pay two sums – $254 million in 1996, and a further $879.1 million in 2020 – for involvement in planning and training the bombing of the USS Cole. On July 29, 2024 Mona Gunn v. Islamic Republic of Iran Order granted judgment against Iran awarded $1.956 billion to the plaintiffs in the USS Cole attack.
According to a Pentagon report provided to the US State Department, Iran is responsible for the deaths of more than 600 U.S. service members in Iraq from 2003 until 2011. “During Operation Iraqi Freedom, DoD assessed that at least 603 U.S. personnel deaths in Iraq were the result of Iran-backed militants,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson told Task & Purpose. Based on declassified U.S. military reports, this means that Iran is responsible for 17 percent of all U.S. troops killed between 2003 and 2011.
According to the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs article ‘Killing Americans and their Allies: Iran’s Continuing War against the United States and the West’:
- “Iran’s support for Iraqi insurgents led to the deaths of an estimated 1,100 U.S. soldiers as well as other Coalition troops in Iraq, including British forces. Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010-2012, James Jeffery, said: ‘Up to a quarter of the American casualties and some of the more horrific incidents in which Americans were kidnapped…can be traced without doubt to these Iranian groups’”
- “Iran paid Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they killed in Afghanistan. The Sunday Times reported that a Taliban operative received $18,000 from an Iranian firm in Kabul as reward for an attack in 2010 that killed several Afghan government troops and destroyed an American armored vehicle”
- “Iranian President Rouhani’s so-called ‘moderation’ was displayed when he appointed Brig.-Gen. Hossein Dehghan to be Iranian Minister of Defense. Dehghan played a key role in the October 1983 suicide bomb attacks in Beirut in which 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers were killed.
- 2024 On January 28, an Iranian-backed jihadi group, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Tower 22, a U.S. military outpost in Rukban, northeast Jordan, with an attack drone. Three US soldiers were killed and 47 injured.
Between October 2023 and August 2024, Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq militias launched 180 attacks against U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq and Jordan.
On November 8, 2024, the US Justice Department announced charges in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former president Donald Trump and a prominent dissident Iranian-American journalist. The foiled plot was directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to avenge the death of its general Qassem Soleimani, killed in a 2020 US strike ordered by then-president Trump. “The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
By the way, Iran also attacked Israel
This newsletter has focused on the war that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging for 46 years against the USA. It would be fair to mention that the IRGC and the Ayatollahs have also focused on warring against Israel, based on their jihadi Islamist beliefs (see ‘The Iranian Leadership’s Continuing Declarations of Intent to Destroy Israel’). Iran and the IRGC have engaged worldwide in many attacks on the state of Israel and on Jewish people. Here is a very truncated list of some attacks:
- 1982 On November 11 a Peugeot 504 car packed with explosives struck the seven-story Israeli military HQ in Tyre, Lebanon. The building was leveled, and 75 Israeli soldiers, border policemen, and Shin Bet agents were killed. Between 14–27 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel were also killed. The injured included 27 Israelis and 28 Arabs. Iran/IRGC oversaw Hezbollah’s training and supplies. IDF Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Abulafia noted in July 2024: “We know that the director of the attack was supported by Iran… there was also some partial involvement by Imad Mughniyeh, one of the founders of Hezbollah . . . We can say responsibly that the attack was directed by Iran.”
- 1983 On November 4 Iran/IRGC oversaw bombing of the IDF HQ in Tyre, Lebanon. A suicide bomber drove a pickup truck filled with half a ton of explosives into a Shin Bet building at the IDF base, killing 28 Israelis and 32 Lebanese prisoners, and wounded about 40 others. The attack was carried out by the Shi’ite Lebanese jihadi organization Hezbollah, trained and guided by Iran.
- 1992 On March 17 a suicide bomber drove a pickup loaded with explosives into the front of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.. The embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building were destroyed. The blast killed 29 (including 4 Israelis and many Argentinian Jews) and wounded 242. Messages intercepted by the American National Security Agency revealed Iranian knowledge of the impending attack, as well as the complicity of Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyah. In April 2024, Argentina’s second highest court ruled that the Iranian government was responsible for the bombing. The ruling also characterized Iran as a terrorist state
- 1994 On July 18 a suicide bomber drove a Renault Trafic van bomb loaded with about 600 pounds (275 kg) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil explosive mixture, into the Jewish community center building, killing 85 people and injuring over 300. In 2024, an Argentine court ruled that Iran directed the attack, and that it was carried by the proxy Hezbollah.
Time and space do not permit us to detail the Iran-financed and Iran-triggered wars using Hamas and Hezbollah, where rockets and terror pogroms were directed against Israeli civilians. These occurred in 2006, 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025.
Time to wake up
For the past half century, Iran and its proxies have caused more American military deaths and injuries than any other organization. Iran and its Pasdaran/IRGF have also established a Shi’ite ring of fire/Shi’ite crescent around Israel, aimed at obliterating the Jewish state and the Jewish people. For those who love Zion and the Jewish people, it is time to intercede:
- “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet – until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning . . . On your walls, Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen! All day and all night they will never keep silent! You who profess YHVH, take no rest for yourselves and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem an object of praise on the earth” (Isaiah 62:1-7)
And it is time to intercede for America as well, that her leaders will be given discernment, courage and military strategies for the challenges that lie immediately ahead.
- Arise, God, and plead Your own cause! Remember how the foolish person taunts You all day long. Do not forget the voice of Your adversaries, the uproar of those who rise against You, which ascends continually (Psalm 74:22-23)
How shall we then pray?
- Pray that Iranian jihadi plans to destroy Israel and to cause great casualties will be nullified
- Pray that divine wisdom, strategies and discernment be given to the leaders of Israel and the USA
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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