In recent months, a revisionist narrative has taken hold across media, social media, and Democrat lawmakers, one that attempts torecast Iranas the victim in a conflict it has spent decades fueling. They claim that Tehran was subjected to unprovoked aggression, that the threat it posed was exaggerated or manufactured, and that the Trump administration constructed a pretext for war.
What follows is a chronological account of confirmed Iranian attacks, both direct and through proxies, drawn from Pentagon data, federal court rulings, 9/11 Commission findings, State Department terrorist designations, Australian Security Intelligence Organization assessments, and allied government intelligence reports.
The record spans 26 years, more than 20 countries, and thousands of casualties. The victims were not exclusively American or Israeli. They were Lebanese, Saudi, Yemeni, Kuwaiti, Emirati, Bahraini, Qatari, Iraqi, Afghan, Australian, Cypriot, and Jordanian.
The Early Record: 2000–2003: The period most revisionists ignore begins before the Iraq War, before the Trump administration, and before any of the policy decisions now cited as Iranian grievances.
In October 2000, aU.S. federal judgeruled that Iran was directly involved in establishing al-Qaeda’s Yemen network through Hezbollah, providing training and logistics support that contributed to the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor, which killed 17 American sailors. The following year, the9/11 Commissionfound strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al-Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks, with at least eight of the future hijackers passing through Iranian territory between October 2000 and February 2001.
In August 2001, an Iran-backed Hamas terrorist killed three Americans in theSbarro pizzeria bombingin Jerusalem. In July 2002, a Hamas bomb atHebrew Universitykilled five Americans and four others. In January 2002, Israeli naval commandos intercepted theKarine-Ain the Red Sea, a vessel carrying more than 50 tons of Iranian weapons and explosives bound for Palestinian terrorist organizations. In October 2003, Iran-backed operatives killed three U.S. diplomatic personnel in Gaza.
The most consequential phase of Iran’s proxy war against the United States unfolded in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. TheU.S. Department of Defensedocumented that Iran-backed militias, principally Kataib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, both trained, armed, and directed by the IRGC Quds Force, were responsible for at least603 Americantroop deaths, roughly one in every six American combat fatalities during that period. The weapons of choice were explosively formed penetrators, armor-piercing devices manufactured in Iran and smuggled across the border.
In January 2007,IRGC-linked operativesdisguised as U.S. soldiers entered a compound in Karbala and killed five American troops. U.S. satellite imagery later revealed that afull-scale mockupof the compound had been constructed inside Iran for training purposes. TheState Departmentlater offered a $15 million reward for information on the IRGC Quds Force commander who planned the attack. Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq alone conducted more than6,000 attackson U.S. and coalition forces between 2006 and 2011, by the group’s own accounting.
In February 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was killed along with 21 others in a Beirut truck bombing. TheUN Special Tribunalfor Lebanon subsequently convicted a Hezbollah operative in the killing.
In the summer of 2006, Iran moved beyond proxy direction into direct operational involvement. During the Second Lebanon War,IRGC operativeswere assessed to have directly participated in Hezbollah’s rocket operations against Israel, with hundreds of Revolutionary Guard personnel present at Hezbollah outposts. Iran supplied the long-range missiles that struck Israeli cities.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
