‘MASSIVE VICTORY’: Appeals Court Backs Trump Detention Policy

NAACP’s Latest Hire Reveals the Left’s Plan to Keep Weaponizing Civil Rights Law Against Conservatives

SAVE America Act Thrusts Ohio Lawmakers Into the News

If GOP Fails on SAVE America Act, Brandon Gill Explains What Democrats Will Do Long-Term

‘MASSIVE VICTORY’: Appeals Court Backs Trump Detention Policy

  PoliticsSecuritySocietyNews

Democrats Are Back to ‘Defund the Police,’ GOP Leadership Claims

Tom Homan Knows Why Democrats Want to Keep DHS Shut Down

‘I Made a Promise to God’: Christian Nonprofit Supports TSA Agents During Shutdown

China’s Military Went Silent Around Taiwan for First Time in Years. Why?

Congressman Asks Trump to Press China to Release Prisoners

Decoupling From China on Critical Minerals Must Be a National Security Priority

  PoliticsSecurityNews

Weaponized Immigration Methods Aimed at America

If GOP Fails on SAVE America Act, Brandon Gill Explains What Democrats Will Do Long-Term

Budget Chairs Push Reconciliation 2.0. Can It Get Off the Ground?

EXCLUSIVE: Rick Scott Aims to Eliminate Social Security Penalty With New Bill

EXCLUSIVE: Poll Finds Virginia Voters Reject Democrats’ Redistricting Push

SAVE America Act Thrusts Ohio Lawmakers Into the News

Trump Tells Senators to Pass the SAVE America Act ‘for Jesus’ 

Justices Skeptical of Counting Late-Arriving Ballots

Talking, Nuking, or Voting on the Filibuster: Where Does GOP Senate Infighting Go From Here?

Citing ‘Echo Chamber’ on Iran, Trump Counterterrorism Chief Resigns

International Commentary

‘It’s a Very Surreal War’

Netanyahu Refutes Death Rumor With Coffee Run

Hegseth: Iran’s Leader ‘Wounded and Likely Disfigured’

Girl Boss vs. Trad Wife: Forced to Choose?

Beyond the Oyster Fork: An Etiquette Expert’s Tips for ‘Relationships, Work, and Life’

Is the Iran Operation ‘America First’?

 International Commentary

Russia Operating ‘Systematic Child Abduction Operation,’ EU Ambassador Says

Victor Davis Hanson: The New Democratic Party

While Some Allies Hesitate, Israel Is Already in the Fight Against Iran

Victor Davis Hanson: Why Kristi Noem Failed at DHS

Victor Davis Hanson: Newsom’s Rocky Month Shows the Risks of Running on Style Over Substance

The Case for Iran: Avoiding a Nuclear 9/11

(ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

Mr. Bob Kiffney is a former member of the Intelligence Community, retired CEO and founder of Defense Contractor BrainTrust, and former board member of Everwatch. He has degrees in Applied Physics and EE. Mr. Kiffney currently resides in Florida pursuing philanthropy and enjoying family.

On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in the deadliest terrorist attack in our nation’s history. The World Trade Center towers collapsed in Lower Manhattan, the Pentagon was breached, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, became a graveyard for heroes who prevented even greater loss. The economic toll exceeded $100 billion. The psychological wound reshaped American life for a generation.

Now imagine those same three targets struck not by hijacked airliners but by nuclear devices.

Many hundreds of thousands—potentially upward of 800,000 in Manhattan alone—would die instantly in fireballs and blast waves. Hundreds of thousands more would suffer horrific burns and radiation poisoning. Firestorms would rage across dense urban cores. The financial heart of the free world would be paralyzed, the seat of American government devastated, and fallout would render swaths of our most populous regions uninhabitable for years. Trillions in economic damage, mass evacuations, overwhelmed hospitals, and a body count dwarfing 9/11 by orders of magnitude would follow.

That is not science fiction. That was the imminent risk a nuclear-armed Iran posed until the United States and Israel launched decisive military action on Feb. 28.

The ongoing war against the Islamic Republic is not the beginning of a conflict. It is the necessary end to one that has raged for 47 years.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the regime in Tehran has been at war with the U.S. The seizure of the U.S. Embassy and the 444-day hostage crisis were only the opening salvo.

Iran’s leaders declared America “the Great Satan” and made exporting their revolution a state imperative. They backed Hezbollah in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers. They were linked to the 1996 Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 U.S. airmen.

Through proxies, Iran supplied IEDs that killed and maimed hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They plotted assassinations on U.S. soil, including a 2011 scheme to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington, a threat to assassinate former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and a thwarted assassination plot against President Donald Trump.  

The Hamas proxy attack on Oct.7, 2023, killed 46 Americans and took 12 hostage—several of those hostages were later murdered in captivity. 

“Death to America” is not a slogan shouted by fringe protesters; it is regime policy, chanted at Friday prayers and emblazoned on missiles.

For decades, America managed this simmering war through sanctions, diplomacy, and targeted responses. We hoped the regime would evolve or that the Iranian people would eventually reclaim their nation. Containment worked—barely—because Iran lacked the ultimate weapon.

That changed as its nuclear program matured.

By 2025, Iran had amassed enough highly enriched uranium for multiple bombs, with breakout time measured in days or weeks. It had mastered advanced centrifuges, ballistic missile technology capable of delivering warheads, and the infrastructure to weaponize fissile material.

International inspections were stonewalled. Diplomacy had run its course. A nuclear Iran was not a theoretical threat; it was weeks away from crossing the threshold.

In June, the United States and Israel conducted Operation Midnight Hammer, striking key nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. It was hoped these precision strikes would cripple the program and demonstrate American resolve.

In early 2026, during the final rounds of Omani-mediated negotiations in Geneva, Iranian negotiators bragged to the American team—led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and including Jared Kushner—that Iran still controlled roughly 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%. They openly stated they knew this stockpile was sufficient to produce material for approximately 11 nuclear bombs and insisted on their “inalienable right” to continue enriching uranium.

For reference, commercial nuclear power requires only 3%-5% enrichment; anything above 20% is considered highly enriched uranium and is weapons-usable.

That is why the United States and Israel launched the current military campaign.

Precision strikes have further degraded Iran’s nuclear sites, crippled missile/drone production and launch facilities, and devastated leadership and the IRGC military. The operation is not escalation. It is self-defense—the only responsible way to end a 47-year conflict before it could inflict catastrophic damage. America could no longer afford to “manage” the conflict. It was time to put it to bed.

Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to use any means necessary to defeat “the infidels.” Their proxies attack Americans and our allies while the regime chants for our annihilation.

A nuclear weapon in their hands would not sit in a silo as a bargaining chip. It would be a divine instrument to strike the Great Satan.

History teaches that religious zealots who believe they are fulfilling prophecy do not behave like rational actors. We have seen it with suicide bombers and 9/11 hijackers. Scaling that fanaticism to nuclear capability is a risk no responsible American leader could accept. The military operations now underway are not about regime change for its own sake, though a post-theocratic Iran at peace with its neighbors and its own people would be a benefit to the region and the world.

Operation Epic Fury is about preventing the next 9/11 from becoming a nuclear horror. It is about protecting American lives, American allies, and the American way of life from an enemy that has been at war with us since 1979.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

‘MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS’: Trump Announces Joint US-Israel Operation Against Iran

Gulf States Are Not Firing Back at Iran. Why?

Does Iran Still Have a War Strategy?

Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE

Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.

The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.

In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.

You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.

The Tony Kinnett Cast

The Daily Signal Podcast

© 2025 The Daily Signal Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

We use cookies on our website. By using our website, you consent to cookies.  Learn More .  

© The Daily Signal