USA Bombs Nuclear Sites in Iran

A History of the Area

I was really not surprised when the United States bombed three nuclear sites in Iran on June 22, 2025 (Israel dateline). Israel has been at odds with its Arab neighbors going back over 2,000 years. If you read your Bible, then you know the history of the Jews in that part of the world. For both the Jewish people and the Palestinians, the land has been holy. It is no wonder such antipathy has accumulated between Israel and the Islamic nations that surround it.

Iran Becomes a Nation

Iran has been a land of unrest since 1834, when the people revolted against the (Turkish) Ottomans who ruled them. The Ottomans treated them as expendable. They forced the men into conscription and sent them on suicide missions. When the Palestinians revolted, they were rather surprised when they won. But it established them as a sovereign state; they started with about 300,000 people. About 25,000 of them were Jewish, but they considered themselves to be a part of this Arab population even if they were not Islamic.

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Israel Becomes a Nation

The Jews have also occupied land in this region, and also for a couple thousand years. The land was designated a sovereign state in 1948, after the horrors the Jewish people experienced in World War II. In 1967 the Jews took possession of the entire piece of land bordered by the strip of land between the West Bank and the Dead Sea on the east; the southern border points like an arrow between Jordan and Egypt; on the west you’ll find Gaza and the Mediterranean Sea; and to the north is Lebanon and Golan, settled like a little cushion against Syria. Three pieces of land occupied by Islamic Palestinians include Golan, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Can Israel and Palestine Ever Co-Exist?

Decades ago, I watched a young Benjamin Netanyahu on television tell the world that if Israel gave up the land of the West Bank, it would leave Israel only 15 miles wide in that area, which would make it indefensible. From that statement, and as Netanyahu’s star rose, I knew that under his rule, he would never, ever give up an inch of land to the Palestinians beyond the Occupied Territories.

I cannot say how many times I have heard that an agreement was imminent or even watched the two leaders of a given year shake hands. But the peace never holds. The young people who protest our government’s reaction to the two populations should realize that this conflict goes back thousands of years, and the people align according to religion despite the awkwardly shared geography. There is no easy solution.

Where is Iran in all this? Israel and the Occupied Territories are at the eastern end of the Mediterranean; Syria lies east of Golan with Jordan to its south. Just beyond that is Iraq, and Iran hugs Iraq’s eastern border. Those countries have also clashed over the years. In 1980, they fought through 1988, and the United States took some action in that war.

For Iraq, it was a power play, for dominance both geographically and also by the rank of the religious sects. Iraq was winning, and then its invasion sputtered out. Iran then pushed back and retook the lands that Iraq had captured, and in 1982, it invaded Iraq. Both countries rejected a United Nations peace resolution, and they kept slugging away at one another.

The United States openly favored Iraq, because it feared the war would spread into other Arab countries, and it also worried that oil prices would be driven higher from the war. However, in 1983, the US learned that Iraq was using chemical weapons on the Iranian soldiers—mustard gas and sarin.

In 1987 Iraq bombed American assets, a frigate we had in the area. And Iranians were mining international waters. We responded with Operation Praying Mantis, which destroyed two of their oil platforms.

An Area Still at Unrest

There have been many more turns and twists between these two countries. Iranian students overran the American embassy in its capital city Tehran on November 4, 1979, and held the people there hostage until January 20, 1981. And despite the United States’ initial support of Iraq, we led a coalition of nations against them when Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Don’t forget our involvement in the Iran-contra gun giveaway. Much of the bloodshed over the years has been because of religious differences, including conflicts between Islamic sects.

Operation Desert Storm ended with freedom for Kuwait, but the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a blood-thirsty tyrant who was not deposed, boasted that he had beaten the United States. That bit of boast ended when American soldiers invaded in 2003 and found him hiding underground. Reportedly, they told him that George Bush sent his regards. He was later judged guilty of war crimes by a tribunal of Iraqi judges and hanged in 2006.

Now it's June 2025, and we find ourselves possibly at war with Iran. Throughout the centuries, throughout the region, these countries have engaged in bloody conflicts that always threaten to spill over and also affect the world’s oil supply.

Iran, with its long history of enmity and warfare, has been determined to build an atomic weapon (presumably several) for years. Barack Obama made a deal with Iran’s leadership to limit its processing of uranium so that any success at completing such a weapon would be far off in the future. However, time passes, and Israel has warned that Iran, freed from its obligation during Donald Trump’s first term, is now close to success.

Considering Iran’s history of hateful aggression against its neighbors, what do you think? We cannot say it’s irrelevant that Iran has aided Russia in its war waged against Ukraine. Many believe that Russia’s Putin asked the Iranians to encourage the attack by Hamas against Israel last October. It is entirely possible that once Iran creates its nuclear weapon, it will not hesitate to use it on the first available enemy.

Israel, on the other hand, still has Netanyahu at its helm, although he has been convicted of crimes in his own country and his constituents believe he is ripe for removal.

Do you think Donald Trump was right to hit Iran’s nuclear sites with 30 Tomahawks? Consider that Trump has usurped yet one more responsibility assigned by the Constitution to our Congress: It is Congress, and not the president, who declares war. Will this turn into a war? Or will this be a warning to Iran that negotiation of peace with Israel is necessary as well as adherence to new policies to be dictated by the United Nations? We shall see what comes next.