Israel and US Victory in the Ayatollah Wars

The US and Israel air forces struck with precision, based on exquisite intelligence, and wiped out the wicked Ayatollah and his evil senior leadership team in one fell swoop. And that’s for starters.

Leonard Grunstein | Mar 3, 2026

IDF strikes inside Tehran, Mar 1, 2026. Screengrab via Youtube. 

Iran’s aggression against the United States:

It began, shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, with the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and holding of 52 American hostages.

Thereafter, in 1983, Iranian proxies targeted U.S. forces in Lebanon, including the homicidal bombing of the US Embassy, killing 17 Americans and 63 others, as well as maiming dozens more. This was followed later that year by the homicidal Beirut barracks bombing and murder of 241 U.S. Marines and other service members, as well as 58 French troops and more than 150 wounded. At the end of 1983 there was the bombing of the US Embassy in Kuwait City.

Then there was the kidnapping and murder of several Americans, including CIA Beirut chief William Buckley, who was tortured and murdered in 1985, and Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins, who was murdered by hanging in 1989.

There were also the hijackings of airlines in which Americans were kidnapped and murdered

These attacks by Iranian Regime proxies were orchestrated by the Regime, which provided funding and training. The goal was to expel Western influence from the region.

Khomeni died in 1989 and the war was continued by his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The violence against Americans continued, including the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. airmen.

It is critical to recognize that the Iranian regime is at war with the United States. Indeed, as Federal District Court Judge Daniels found in his ruling issued on December 22, 2011, in the Havlish case, Iran has been waging war against the United States for over 30 years. He held Iran, including the Ayatollah, were responsible for the 9/11 (2001) attacks on the US, one of the most provocative and destructive terrorist acts committed against the US homeland and its people.

Judge Daniels, in his 53 pages of detailed Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law, described the role Iran and its various governmental organs played in this horrible attack on the US, which killed 2,977 people on 9/11, as well as the first responders and many others who have died since. Among other things, the Court found:

(1) the Ayatollah holds absolute power and can dismiss the president, overrule the parliament and courts and overturn any secular law;

(2) the religious division between Sunni and Shia did not, in fact, pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation on terrorist operations and an alliance was formed between Shia Iran and Sunni al Qaeda to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States, including 9/11 (ed.note: Sunni Hama)

(3) Iran was behind the Khobar Towers bombing and the attacks on the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam; and

(4) Iran devised plans aimed at breaking the backbone of the American economy, crippling or disheartening the United States and its people and disrupting its economic, social, military and political order, including the scheme to crash Boeing jumbo jets, with large fuel capacities, into the World Trade Center, White House and Pentagon that was code named “Shaitan dar Atash” (loosely translated as, Satan in Flames).

The Iranian Regime also supplied IEDs, EFPs, rockets and training to Iraq and Afghanistan (2003-2021), paid bounties for the murder of Americans and was responsible for the death of over 600 U.S. troops. The 2007 Karbala raid, planned by the IRGC-Quds Force, resulted in five American deaths.

Who can forget how the Iranian regime blatantly attacked US bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles, in January of 2020? Then there were rocket attacks, by its Hezbollah proxy, in March of 2020.

During the period 2017-2021 there were over 100 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria by Iranian Regime proxies. After the US responded with the killing of Qasem Soleimani in 2020, there was the ballistic missile attack on Ain al-Asad base, injuring over 100 American troops. From October 2023 to mid-2025, Iranian Regime-backed militias launched over 500 strikes on U.S. positions in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, including the January 2024 Tower 22 drone attack that killed three Americans.

In addition, there were Houthi attacks on U.S. ships numbering approximately 200 by 2025. Iran has also repeatedly conducted dangerous and harassing approaches of US Naval forces in the international waters of the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian Regime has also plotted and attempted to assassinate President Trump and other US officials.

Make no mistake about it, the autocratic Shiite Iranian Regime views itself as being in a state of war with the US, as evidenced above, as well as Israel and the Sunni Arab nations, like Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. It seeks to annihilate Israel, control Mecca and dominate the Sunni controlled countries.

The Iranian Regime’s enmity toward Israel and Jews is due in no small measure to its political theology that seeks to eliminate those who don’t submit to the Regime and conform to its Islamist creed. Israel is also viewed as an agent of the US and Western culture, which the Regime disparages and treats as antithetical to its creed. The US is viewed by the Iranian Regime as the ‘Big Satan’ and Israel as the ‘Little Satan’.

The Iranian Regime has manifested this enmity in direct and proxy attacks on Israel and Jews globally. Hezbollah, founded by the Iranian Regime in 1982, and Hamas, sponsored, funded and supplied with weapons by Iranian Regime, have been central to this campaign.

The 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires killed 29. It was followed by the 1994 AMIA Jewish center attack, claiming 85 lives. Both were Hezbollah operations under IRGC direction.

Beginning in 2000, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, backed by Iran, killed hundreds of Israelis during the Second Intifada and Gaza conflicts. In the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets, killing 165 Israelis. Besides the 2012 Burgas bus bombing in Bulgaria killing five Israelis, attacks were thwarted in India, Thailand, and Cyprus.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and its cohorts invaded Israel and massacred more than 1,200 Israelis, Americans and others, committed atrocities, kidnapped Israelis, Americans and others, held them hostage and tortured and abused them, as well as firing thousands of rockets targeting civilians. Hezbollah also fired over 10,000 missiles and rockets into Israel and the Houthis fired dozens of missiles from Yemen, killing two Israelis.

Direct Iranian barrages in April and October 2024, and June 2025, targeted Israeli cities, though mostly intercepted. Abroad, IRGC networks, often using criminals like Foxtrot and Hell’s Angels, plotted against synagogues in Germany, France, and Sweden. In 2024-2025, plots were thwarted in Greece, Australia, and Mexico that targeted embassies and rabbis.

It is also important to remember, the Iranian Regime has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since the 2000s. This includes the concealed enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordow, pursuit of weaponization and failure to declare uranium activities. It breached the JCPOA limits, as well, enriching its uranium stockpiles to the threshold of weapons-grade and restricting IAEA access.

By 2025, breakout time was reduced to mere weeks and possibly shorter. In June 2025, the IAEA declared non-compliance, leading to European snapback of UN sanctions in August. Iran suspended cooperation, further eroding verification.

The illicit nuclear program, coupled with ballistic missile development, created unacceptable risks for Israel and the U.S., as well as friends and allies, including Arab Nations in the Middle East and European Nations and, frankly speaking, the world.

The US State Department has declared Iran a State Sponsor of Terrorism ever since January 19, 1984 and the US intelligence community views Iran as an enduring threat to US national interests. The Iranian Regime’s military arm, the IRGC is a US designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The EU finally recently followed suit and also designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in February.

After the miraculous 12-Day war in June of 2025, in which the US and Israel joined hands to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, there was a renewed dedication to eliminating Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. It’s no coincidence that the uprising by the good people of Iran seeking to unshackle themselves from the oppressive autocratic terrorist Regime of the Ayatollah, which threatened the US and Israel, took hold anew and then began to intensify and expand across Iran.

The murderous response of the Regime to its own people was appalling and stirred the conscience of many right-thinking moral people. The time was ripe for action.

President Trump tried diplomacy in the hope that an agreement could be negotiated; but it failed to yield any acceptable or reliable results. Then a rare opportunity presented itself, when the Ayatollah and his top leadership circle were assembled in one place. President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly spoke and agreed not to miss this golden opportunity that appears to have been delivered to them on a silver platter by Divine Providence.

The US and Israel air forces struck with precision, based on exquisite intelligence, and wiped out the wicked Ayatollah and his evil senior leadership team in one fell swoop.

The Iranian Regime’s response was predictable; firing their ballistic missile arsenal at everyone. They shot at Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and US bases everywhere they could reach, including in Jordan and Iraq. Direct Iranian barrages in February 2026 targeted U.S. bases across the Gulf, killing at least three service members.

As I sat in the safe room in Jerusalem waiting for the all clear to sound, I had time to reflect on these matters. I read about how Saudi Arabia, despite its public pronouncements in support of the Iranian Regime, was really urging the US to eliminate the threat. The fact that the Iranian Regime was attacking the surrounding Arab nations with ballistic missiles triggered a memory.

I was reminded of the amazingly Midrashic work, Pesikta Rabbati (36:1), presciently describes how in the year that the Moshiach is revealed, the nations of the world would be provoking each other. In particular, it notes that the Government of Iran (Persia) will provoke the Government of Arabia. The King of Arabia will then go to Edom (i.e., the Western World) to seek counsel. It is suggested that in the present times, this might mean the US as the leader of the free world. Meanwhile, the Government of Iran will try to destroy the whole world and everyone will be distressed and in an uproar, falling on their faces and seized with agonizing pain as if they were giving birth. Israel will also be distressed and in fear, but G-d will re-assure them not to worry or be afraid.

G-d willing, the time of the ultimate redemption is arriving soon and Israel will triumph and be free, without any distress, and not under the yoke of any other nation.

Now’s not the time to hesitate; appeasement is a failed policy. With G-d’s help we will eradicate the evil that is the terrorist Iranian Regime and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah and usher in a period of genuine peace.

There is a new reality burgeoning in the Middle East, fostered by the US and Israel, great allies and genuine friends, with strong and enduring bonds, including shared values, trust, loyalty, common security interests, economic ties and a marvelous working relationship at the highest levels between President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the members of their Cabinet Secretaries, Ministers and Ambassadors, respectively and the leadership in Congress and the Knesset.

It can be well said that the Circle of Peace and Prosperity that they created with the Abraham Accords, emerged from and is centered in Jerusalem. There are now many wonderful nations, who joined and benefit from the Abraham Accords and from becoming a part of the Circle. The good and free people of Iran would be a welcome addition to the Circle.

As Psalms 122:6 declares, those who seek the peace of Jerusalem shall prosper and enjoy tranquility and Number 24:9 assures, those who bless Israel will be blessed. May the blessings of peace prevail.

Leonard Grunstein is a retired attorney and banker, who founded and served as Chairman of Metropolitan National Bank and then Israel Discount Bank of NY. He founded Project Ezrah and serves on the Board of Bernard Revel at Yeshiva Univ. and the AIPAC National Council. He has published articles in the Banking Law Journal, Real Estate Finance Journal and more, and is the co-author of “Because It’s Just and Right: The Untold Back-Story of the U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.”