A History of Hostility: Let The Record Show The United States Is The Real Aggressor Against Iran

Iran is a rogue terrorist state, a threat to world peace. That is what we're constantly told by our so-called leaders and the corporate press parroting State Department talking points to justify this latest disastrous conflict in the Middle East.

The consequences have already been disastrous, with over 1,200 dead at the time of this writing and countless more wounded, including approximately 175 children in a strike on an Iranian girls school that even American press is now acknowledging the United States was responsible for. As well as the patently illegal assassination of the nation's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has responded with nonstop retaliatory strikes in the region against US and Israeli installations.

Further reports indicate that the US-Israeli onslaught continues to target civilian infrastructure including at least three more schools.

The free thought project has long warned of the looming war on Iran, even predicting its inevitability as early as January of this year.

We have long reported that the ultimate goal of the American Empire was regime change in Tehran, frequently reiterating the plans exposed by former US Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark in 2007 wherein general Clark revealed that a foreign policy had been concocted to topple the governments of seven nations ― Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, and finally Iran.

As The Free Thought Project reported in December of 2024, the fall of the Assad government in Syria was effectively the final piece before targeting Tehran, making an attempt at regime change inevitable.

Despite Donald Trump's spurious charges against Iran, many of which lack context or veracity, the facts firmly indicate that this is a war of choice, a war of aggression, on the part of the United States.

Multiple sources, including Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi who was directly involved in negotiations between the US and Iran, indicate that a diplomatic agreement was imminent.

Additionally, independent journalist Richard Medhurst corroborated these claims in a report published by Iran's PressTV, indicating that the Iranian government had agreed to concessions far beyond those that were originally accepted in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump illegally terminated in his first term. 

Furthermore, amid the numerous glaring contradictions used to attempt to justify the war on Iran, intelligence continuously conclusively indicated Iran is not and has not been attempting to develop a nuclear weapon. This has been confirmed by Robert Malley, the lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as well as Rafael Grossi, Director General of the UN’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as recently as October 2025, stating definitively that there was no evidence Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

This fact is further backed up by the United States' own threat assessments from both the Department of Defense, and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, with Pentagon officials later acknowledging there was no evidence of an "imminent threat" despite Trump's claims to the contrary.

As we have mentioned in previous reporting, the false assertions of Iran's alleged nuclear development have been repeated ad nauseam by Zionist entity premier Benjamin Netanyahu for the last three decades without a shred of veracity. 

It is patently obvious that US Israeli aggressions against Iran Are not only completely unjustified but also blatantly illegal.

As Mondoweiss elaborates;

Of course, this is nothing new. Israel has long desired the destabilization of Iran to facilitate further Zionist expansion in the region and the United States has been more than happy to oblige to assist in these aims as well as for its own imperialist agendas.

In recent years the United States has capitalized on multiple opportunities to promote easily debunkable anti-Iranian propaganda, including false narratives about the recent riots throughout the country. While at the present the corporate media has gone all out chomping at the bit to support the war.

Amid recent unrest in the streets of Tehran, intelligence assets from the CIA as well as Israel's Mossad worked to hijack the movement into a color revolution, much like had been previously attempted throughout a wave of protests in 2022, as confirmed by leaked documents.

But the history of Western aggression against Iran goes far beyond modern hostilities. In the 1950s Iran was ruled by the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh, a popular progressive and secular nationalist who was praised for his reformist policies and still held in high regard today. But Mossadegh's policies were not popular with Western oligarchs keen on exploiting the resources of whomever they saw fit, and upon nationalizing Iran's oil industry gained the ire of the American and British ruling class.

In 1953, the CIA on behalf of the US and MI6 on behalf of Britain launched the joint Operation Ajax / Operation Boot, a clandestine campaign in which intelligence assets disguised as communist provocateurs carried out a series of false flag attacks bombing political and religious sites in Tehran, framing Mossadegh as a Soviet puppet, and destabilizing the country creating the conditions necessary for a full coup d'etat ousting Mossadegh and installing the repressive regime of the Shah under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Under the Pahlavi regime, Iran acted as a proxy for Western interests in the Middle East, serving as a bulwark against those who resisted Western and Zionist neo colonial expansions and exploitations.

While domestically, the CIA and Israel's Mossad, along with Brittan's MI6, were instrumental in establishing and supporting the Organization of National Intelligence and Security, better known by the Farsi acronym SAVAK, which acted as the regime's secret police notorious for their brutal torture, intimidation tactics, and censorship. The organization infiltrated every aspect of Iranian life, spreading fear and repression through the country until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. As The Associated Press reports, even 40 years after the revolution much of Iran's population still lives with the scars of the US-backed network of state sponsored terror.

In an ironic twist suitable only for the blowback typical of western foreign policy, a series of declassified diplomatic cables and reports indicate that in the unrest leading up to the 1979 revolution the governments of the United States and Great Britain covertly worked to ensure Ruhollah Khomeini along with his particular brand of Islamic fundamentalism returned from exile to seize control of the country.

The decision was made largely due to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan that same year and fears of Iran adopting a communist government. Essentially the plan was to bring Khomeini to power to destroy any potentiality of a communist revolution, and then wage a successive color revolution to oust him and install a western backed puppet regime. But this plan failed.

Shortly after the revolution and the installation of the Islamic Republic, in 1980, Iran would enter into a brutal war with Iraq that would last eight years and cost approximately one million lives.

Esteemed journalist Robert Perry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories while working for The Associated Press, reported in 1996 the discovery of documents containing communication between President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig which confirmed that in late 1979 president Carter, via conveying information through then Saudi Prince Fahd, had given a green light to Iraq's Saddam Hussein (also at the time a western proxy installed to power via a CIA coup) authorizing Iraq's invasion of Iran.

Presumably, the regional destabilization from Iraq's war with Iran was intended to unseat the Islamic regime that Western intelligence had just helped install. Throughout the war the United States would covertly supply both sides: providing Iran with arms shipments through Israel as a part of the backdoor Iran-Contra affair that saw the US secretly selling Iran weapons to fund its covert war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, while at the same time directly providing support to Saddam Hussein's forces even as they carried out indiscriminate chemical weapons attacks throughout Iran with munitions provided to them by the United States.

Throughout the war a series of incidences solidified the hostile relations between the United States and Iran. In 1983 the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah carried out a truck bombing on a US barracks in Beirut killing 241 service members seemingly in retaliation for the US's support for Israel during its war with Lebanon. However, Mossad defector Victor Ostrovsky would later claim that Israeli forces had advanced knowledge of the attack and neglected to share actionable intelligence with the United States that could have prevented the attack.

Some years later in 1988, the US would blame Iran for a mine attack in the Persian Gulf which damaged the USS Samuel B Roberts despite the uncertainty as to whether or not the mine belonged to Iran or Iraq. Despite this discrepancy the US would launch Operation Praying Mantis, devastating Iran's navy as well as multiple oil platforms in a retaliation that the International Court of Justice would later rule to be disproportionate due to the uncertain ownership of the mine.

Perhaps the most damning incident occurred on July 3rd, 1988. An American naval vessel, the USS Vincennes, was illegally traversing through Iranian territorial waters in violation of international law when its weapons system locked on to Iran Air Flight 655, an A300 Airbus commercial aircraft with 290 civilians on board. Captain William C. Rogers III was eager to engage a target that day and by authorizing the firing of two missiles at the airliner chose to end the lives of nearly 300 innocent civilians, and, with the help of Britain, proceeded to engage in a cover up of the incident attempting to assert he believed the aircraft to be an F-14 fighter jet.

The United States and Iran would agree to a $61.8 million settlement in 1996, but rather than facing consequences for this heinous war crime, Captain Rogers would later receive a commendation for "meritorious service".

After a ceasefire was agreed upon between Iran and Iraq in 1988, the 1990s would see a lull in direct hostilities as indirect conflicts would emerge with proxy groups of the Iranian resistance such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others engaged in fighting against the imperial and Zionist forces that had spent over 40 years attempting to topple Tehran. But western military planners were still privately plotting their next move.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010's hostility became more clandestine, with Iran constantly being the target of sanctions (long known to have disastrous effects as a tool of economic warfare), cyber attacks, sabotage, and covert assassinations.

Despite all of this, hopeful progress was made in 2015 with the signage of the historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, in which the government of Iran along with various other global heads of state came to an agreement which more than 70 of the world’s leading nuclear non-proliferation specialists said “is a strong, long-term, and verifiable agreement that will be a net-plus for international nuclear non-proliferation efforts.”

Despite this, however, mass influx of propaganda parroting outright lies was inundated to attempt to sabotage the nuclear agreement. Ultimately, the agreement was signed, though sadly only lasted for a little while. Despite the agreement being the best possible chance for diplomacy and a cessation of hostilities, on October 13th 2017 Donald Trump would bow to his Zionist backers and decertify the agreement.

Since then, the Trump Administration has marched in lockstep with Israel's plans for war. Just a few short years later on January 3rd 2020, the Trump administration would launch an illegal drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, and assassinate Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani while he visited the country on a peaceful diplomatic mission.

The last six years have seen nothing but a nonstop wave of hostility against Iran leading to this very moment. Time and again we were brought to the brink of war until it finally spilled over.

A recent report from The GrayZone outlined how Israel, ever the maniacal manipulator, along with the FBI were able to manufacture fake assassination plots against Donald Trump and other US officials to guide our country on the path to war.

And a long war it shall likely be. The military-industrial complex is chomping at the bit, with US oil lobbies describing it as "the biggest opportunity", and Pentagon contractors already making a killing as weapon manufacturers stock goes through the roof.

Administration officials speaking with The Intercept have indicated that there is no clear vision for the war going forward, no outlined plan for the aftermath. Yet despite the recklessness of this laissez faire approach, the CIA is already working on arming Kurdish forces to engage the Iranian military in ground operations, as well as reports indicating that Donald Trump is privately mulling over possible troop deployments putting boots on the ground, while bloodthirsty Christian nationalist military commanders proclaim their desire for the war to trigger Armageddon.

Iran is by no means a perfect nation. It has plenty of faults, its leaders are authoritarian despots, and like with any government the machinery of the state is used to suppress the liberty of its people, but history is clear in the fact that the nation of Iran hasn't initiated a war with another sovereign nation in over three centuries, and any aggressive actions it may have taken in the last few decades are arguably justifiable acts of self defense against exterior hostile forces. This is not a defensive war on the part of the United States ― it is one of aggression, empire, and conquest.

There's no telling where we go from here, but wherever it may be, it's bound to be a bumpy ride.