(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Letter to the Editor)

Today’s Socialist Democratic Party maintains the U.S. is not at war with Iran and that President Trump and Israel have no justification for bombing Iran. The justification is because Iran has been at war with the U.S. since 1979, when Iranian radicals overthrew the Iranian government, invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 54 Americans hostage and held them captive for 444 days until President Ronald Reagan took office. Only then were the hostages released.

Since the 1979 hostage crisis, the Iranians have attacked American ships and military bases continually until President Trump took office. No president has held Iran accountable.

It wasn’t until President Trump’s second term, with the radical Iranian government on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, President Trump took action to end their nuclear program.

President Trump first tried diplomacy with Iran, but U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff reported Iranian negotiators stated Iran giving up their nuclear program was non-negotiable, Iran had a right to possess nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, the Iranian negotiators bragged that Iran possessed 22,000 pounds of enriched uranium, enough to build 22 bombs, which Iran would not give up.

Former President Obama paid the radical Iranian government $6 billion in assorted currencies, which Obama alleged Iran would use to rebuild their infrastructure. The Iranians instead used the billions to fund their nuclear program and to fund global terrorism through their proxy groups.

Obama also negotiated a ridiculous treaty, which put Iran on a path to nuclear weapons within ten years. The Iranians violated the treaty a dozen times but were never held accountable.

Later, as president, Biden released the Iranians from $100 billion in sanctions, which President Trump put on them during his first term.

Leaders of the Democratic Party have asserted President Trump had no authority to bomb Iran without a Congressional declaration of war. Obama bombed Libya for seven months without a declaration of war. The Vietnam and Korean wars were fought without declarations of war. The U.S. hasn’t fought a “declared” war since World War II, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Congress issued a declaration of war against the Axis.

If the U.S. and Israel hadn’t acted decisively when they did, the whole world would be endangered by a nuclear Iran.

Americans and the entire world should stand behind Trump as he eliminates the Iranian nuclear threat.

Steve Wolverton

Parkersburg