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Recent comments on social media have characterized the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities as unjustified, unprovoked, and illegal. On the contrary, the US action was a carefully measured and restrained response to decades of Iranian hostility and aggression.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian students occupied the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. In April of 1983, a suicide car bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, by the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah, killed 63 people. Later that year Hezbollah murdered 241 US service members at a Marine barracks in Beirut. In 1996 a truck bomb by another Iran-backed proxy killed 19 US Air Force personnel at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. From 2003 through 2011, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard provided weapons, training, and funding to Iraqi militias that enabled them to kill more than 600 members of the US military. These incidents are only a few examples from a myriad of incessant violence and terror.

Iran’s aggression has increased over the decades. In 2023, Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen attacked US ships in the Red Sea. The October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel was accomplished with financial, logistical, and military support from Iran. Approximately 1200 people were murdered, including 800 civilians. Women were raped, gang raped, and tortured. Hamas, with Iran’s enthusiastic support, burned people alive, dismembered and mutilated corpses. Children and infants were killed, burned, and decapitated. The perpetrators of these atrocities often filmed themselves in the act. Hostages were taken, some of which to this day have not been released or accounted for.

The execution of the US strike on Iran was flawless. Dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the attack on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan involved coordination of US intelligence gathering with the deployment of air and naval forces. The mission was the culmination of decades of planning and preparation. The Iranians were taken off guard by intentional deception. A June 19 statement by President Trump was calculated to give the impression that any strike would not occur before two weeks, but the actual attack was launched three days later. On June 21, the US announced that B2 bombers were being deployed westward to Guam while seven B2 bombers departed from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and flew eastward directly to Iran. The B2s refueled enroute several times, taking eighteen hours to reach their targets in Iran. The B2 bombers were accompanied by F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, and EA-18G Growlers that jammed Iranian radar and communications. E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft coordinated command, control and communications. Tomahawk missiles fired from the USS Eisenhower strike group destroyed Iranian radar installations. Six B2s dropped 12 GBU-57 “massive ordnance penetrator” bombs on the Fordow site, while the seventh B2 dropped 2 GBU-57 bombs on the Natanz site. Almost simultaneously, a US submarine fired 30 Tomahawk missiles at the Natanz and Isfahan facilities.

Altogether, Operation Midnight Hammer was an awesome demonstration of the US ability to project power worldwide. The attack indicated that President Trump is not afraid or reticent to use military force when necessary. At the same time, Trump also clearly indicated that his use of force was rational and limited, used only as a method of last resort following decades of failed diplomacy. Iran’s oil production and transportation facilities and its civilian population were left untouched.

Without the ability to conduct inspections, it is difficult to make accurate damage assessments, but it seems likely that significant damage was done to Iran’s nuclear program and facilities. Going forward, Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. The government of Iran is controlled by Islamic zealots who are dedicated to the destruction of both Israel and the US. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenie, has described Israel as a “cancerous tumor” that must be eliminated. There is a doomsday clock in Tehran that counts down the days until September, 2040, the date prophesied by Khamenei for Israel’s destruction.

The government of Iran not only threatens the existence of the US, it also holds its own people in a tyrannical grip. Iranian women are second-class citizens, denied equal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and employment. Wife beating is legal. A woman who appears in public without covering her hair can be flogged, while the penalty for publicly advocating non-compliance is death. About 70 to 80 percent of the Iranian population want their government to be replaced.

Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the US. If they have nuclear weapons they will use them on major American cities without fear of retribution. The leaders in Iran have an apocalyptic theology. Unlike a rational person, they will not be constrained by an assurance of mutual destruction. The unacceptable alternative to the preemptive action we took was an imminent holocaust of unimaginable magnitude.

David Deming is Professor of Arts & Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. Follow him on X @profdeming.