A.M.M.Muzammil
American aggression against Iran is not a recent development; its origins trace back more than seven decades. Prior to 1953, Iran was a relatively peaceful country with a democratic government. The democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh sought to assert Iranian sovereignty over its most valuable natural resource.
In 1951, Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which for decades had extracted immense wealth while giving Iran a paltry share of the profits and keeping Iranian workers in poor conditions. This move, intended for the betterment of the Iranian people, directly challenged Western economic domination, particularly that of United Kingdom and the United States.
The response was swift and covert. In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British Secret Intelligence Service staged a coup d’état, code-named Operation Ajax. This marked the first time the United States had overthrown a democratically elected government during peacetime.
Authorized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 1953 coup orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency and Secret Intelligence Service used bribery, military influence, and staged unrest to overthrow the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh was arrested and spent the rest of his life under house arrest, while Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was restored as Shah. Backed by billions in U.S. support, the Shah ruled for the next 26 years through authoritarian rule, relying on the notorious secret police SAVAK to suppress dissent.
This deep-seated resentment finally boiled over in 1979. A popular, broad-based uprising, led by the exiled cleric Ruhollah Khomeini, overthrew the Shah in the Iranian Revolution. The revolution was a direct response to decades of foreign interference and autocratic rule. The new revolutionary government, fiercely independent and anti-imperialist, was immediately viewed as a threat by Washington.
Following the 1979 revolution, America’s efforts to destabilize Iran intensified. The United States most destructively threw its weight behind Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, beginning the Iran–Iraq War, the United States provided Saddam with billions of dollars in aid, crucial military intelligence, and satellite imagery, and facilitated the supply of chemical weapons precursors, while also secretly selling arms to Iran in the Iran–Contra affair.
This policy of indirectly backing both sides prolonged a brutal conflict that cost over a million lives and cemented the deep mistrust and hostility that continue to define U.S.–Iran relations.
Be that as it may, after several failed attempts to destabilize the Islamic Republic, the United States once again adopted an aggressive strategy. On June 22, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that U.S. forces had launched bunker-buster strikes on Iran’s key nuclear facilities — the Natanz Nuclear Facility, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center — claiming they had been “completely and totally obliterated.”
After realizing the mission had failed — Iran had reportedly evacuated the sites beforehand, transferring enriched uranium reserves to safety — the United States sought a peace deal. To de-escalate the crisis and prevent a wider regional war, Iran agreed to a ceasefire. U.S. officials also reached out diplomatically to stress that Washington did not seek regime change.
Yet within less than a year, Trump — embattled in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal as newly released documents implicated prominent figures — found a new avenue to divert public attention.Collaborating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump invaded Iran on February 28, 2026, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several top military leaders under the pretext of regime change.
This unilateral attempt to pursue regime change in Iran lacked both a legitimate mandate and a sound legal foundation. The attack occurred amid ongoing diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, with minimal consultation with the U.S. Congress and without authorization from the United Nations.
The Badr Albusaidi, Foreign Minister of Oman, who had been mediating the indirect nuclear negotiations, stated that Iran had agreed to a framework of zero stockpiling of enriched uranium, effectively rendering disputes over enrichment levels largely moot.
Instead of imploding, Iran hardened. Khamenei’s death galvanized public resolve, with religious authorities framing it as the start of a jihad against Israel and the United States. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and conventional forces retaliated with waves of ballistic missiles and drones targeting American bases across Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. A strike on a Kuwaiti base hosting Italian troops caused significant damage.
The conflict has since spread to the waters off Sri Lanka. On March 4, 2026, the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was sunk by a U.S. torpedo 40 nautical miles south of Galle — the war’s first major naval engagement in the Indian Ocean — forcing Sri Lanka into a complex diplomatic and security crisis.
For 73 years, it appears that America has not fully absorbed the lessons of history. Iran is not Iraq. It is not Nicaragua. It is a land where people are not afraid of death—a nation shaped by sacrifice and martyrs. Iran has consistently answered pressure with resilience.
History also bears witness to another reality: no foreign power has ever truly conquered Iran. Should the United States persist in seeking to dismantle the Iranian state through force, it risks entangling itself in a conflict that could become a graveyard for American ambitions—its own Vietnam in the heart of the Middle East.
An invasion of Iran would not be Uncle Sam’s Battle of Waterloo, but would instead shatter America’s military dominance, drain its resources, and redefine power in the Middle East.
