Mark A. Berman is a trial attorney and appellate litigator. This piece is a response to “Vermont guardsmen are in harm’s way. And for what?” [Viewpoint, March 11].
ATHENS-In two recent opinion pieces, Laura Sibilia and Dan DeWalt offered critical perspectives on the United States’ use of force in Iran. However, their similarities end there.
While Ms. Sibilia dispassionately explains the legal framework governing the mobilization of the National Guard, Mr. DeWalt launches into a polemic against Israel, asserting that “Iran poses no threat to us.” He argues that Iran’s nuclear program was crippled before the war and the Iranian regime is too unstable to project power or threaten Americans.
One may believe that war is inherently wrong or that this specific conflict is a mistake. One can even indulge Mr. DeWalt’s suggestion that Benjamin Netanyahu is working “mysterious magic” on Donald Trump if one believes in voodoo.
However, the claim that Iran poses no threat to the United States is flatly contradicted by nearly 50 years of history.
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Since the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, the Islamic Republic has engaged in a steady pattern of violence against the United States, targeting U.S. service members, diplomats, and civilians. For Iran, “Death to America” has not been merely aspirational; it has been its functional modus operandi.
Given the history, one can legitimately question why past U.S. presidents allowed the threat posed by Iran to grow for so long.
The record is extensive. Between 1983 and 1984, Iranian-sponsored suicide bombings in Beirut killed over 260 Americans. In response, the U.S. State Department designated Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism — a status it earned repeatedly through its development of the “Axis of Resistance.”
This network of terrorist militias, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, was designed to strike not only Israeli interests but also U.S. interests without triggering a full-scale war.
From the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing to the 1998 East Africa Embassy attacks and the incessant targeting of U.S. troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, Iran-backed militias killed over 600 Americans and wounded thousands more.
In addition to insidious bombings, Iran’s fingerprints have been tied to the torture and murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem on TWA Flight 847; the 1988 mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, which nearly sank a U.S. frigate and injured 69 sailors; and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded 39.
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The threat posed by Iran remains lethal.
In January 2020, Iran fired missiles at the Al-Asad Airbase, wounding over 100 Americans; in January 2024, an Iran-backed militia used a drone to attack U.S. soldiers stationed at military outpost in northeastern Jordan killing three and wounding over 40. Between 2023 and 2025, Iran and its proxies repeatedly attacked U.S. bases and Red Sea shipping, causing further American casualties.
These statistics only account for the toll on American lives (and does not include Jewish-Americans killed and sexually brutalized by Hamas in the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre and thereafter); the global toll is vastly higher.
Even after the June 2025 strikes on its nuclear facilities — which Mr. DeWalt likely opposed yet now uses to support his claim of a diminished threat — Iran accelerated its production of ballistic missiles and drones designed to eventually reach the American homeland.
The threat and impact of those destructive weapons is on full display in the current round of fighting. The domestic threat posed by Iran is equally real: Just last week, a federal jury in Brooklyn — hardly a bastion of conservatism — convicted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operative Asif Merchant of plotting to assassinate American politicians on U.S. soil, including Donald Trump.
I should hope we could all agree, regardless of one’s political leanings, that a foreign power plotting assassinations within our borders poses a direct threat to the United States.
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If Mr. DeWalt’s opinion were less emotional, he might have fairly pointed out that the threat posed by Iran to the United States — unlike the threat to Israel — is not currently existential. I would agree with him on that point.
Even so, given that Iran has been and continues to be a threat to American lives and U.S. interests, why should our leaders wait until the United States is facing an existential threat to take the steps necessary to protect its citizens?
Indeed, one can fairly wonder why previous presidents (including Donald Trump himself) did not sooner respond to Iran’s “Death to America” objective with decisive force.
A more rational explanation for this conflict than “mysterious magic” is that Iran’s insistence on building weapons capable of striking U.S. interests and, eventually, the United States itself, finally reached a breaking point.
The very real threat posed by Iran was not going to magically disappear. Although it is not a popular view, I am glad that this administration — notwithstanding its many other failings — has taken the steps necessary to degrade Iran’s capabilities.
Destruction of the Islamic State’s military infrastructure now is preferable to allowing its arsenal to grow — an arsenal that, history proves, would be used to continue to kill and maim Americans.
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