Disrupting Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions and Ballistic Missile Threats Against Americans

IRAN’S BALLISTIC MISSILE FORCE POSED A CLEAR AND PRESENT THREAT TO U.S. SERVICE MEMBERS

“The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now and it’s doing quite successfully.” – Secretary of State Marco Rubio

• “Iran possesses the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East — an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 missiles capable of reaching U.S. military bases throughout the region, as well as allies like Israel and Arab states.”
  • “Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons to have first produced a 2,000-km-range ballistic missile,” and refused to “include its ballistic missile capability as a subject for” negotiations with the Trump administration. (Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Iran FAQ: What You Should Know – 2/25/26)

• “Iran has long been identified by the United States and other countries as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Iran provides the majority of arms, training, funding, and guidance to its terrorist proxies.” (Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Iran FAQ: What You Should Know – 2/25/26)

AND IRAN HAS A LONG HISTORY OF SPONSORING TERROR AGAINST AMERICANS

• Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian regime has inflicted mass terror on Americans and allies:
  • October 1983: “Operatives of the Iran-backed Hezbollah drive a truck bomb at a Marine compound in Beirut, killing 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel.”
  • August 1998: “With the assistance of Hezbollah, al Qaeda suicide bombers almost simultaneously blow up the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounding thousands.” (Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Iranian and Iranian-Backed Attacks Against Americans (1979-Present) – 6/19/25)

• • 2000s: During the Iraq war, Iranian-back militias killed roughly 600 U.S. soldiers. “That means roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq were attributable to Iran.” (MilitaryTimes: Iran killed more US troops in Iraq than previously known, Pentagon says – 4/4/19)

• • October 7, 2023: “Hamas kills at least 48 Americans and kidnaps at least 12 Americans in a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel.”
  • Post-October 7 attacks: Since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, “Iran and its proxies have conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East between October 17, 2023, and November 19, 2024, resulting in more than 180 wounded and three killed U.S. service members.” (Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Iranian and Iranian-Backed Attacks Against Americans (1979-Present) – 6/19/25)

CURBING IRAN’S AGGRESSION AND ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS HAS BEEN A CONSISTENT POLICY OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

• According to both the Trump and Biden administrations, Iran was emboldened after Hamas’ October 7 attack and posed a direct threat to U.S. interests:
  • In 2024, the Biden administration concluded that “Iran will remain a threat to Israel and U.S. allies and interests in the region well after the Gaza conflict, and probably will continue arming and aiding its allies to threaten the United States as well as backing HAMAS and others who seek to block a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.” (Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community – 2/5/24)

• • In 2025, the Trump administration found that “Iran continues to bolster the lethality and precision of its domestically produced missile and UAV systems, and it has the largest stockpiles of these systems in the region. It considers them as critical to its deterrence strategy and power projection capability…” (Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community – Mar. 2025)

• • The Trump administration also found that “In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus.” (Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community – Mar. 2025)

• For decades, Democrat presidents have agreed that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon:
  • “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” – President Joe Biden (6/28/21)
  • “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.” – President Barack Obama (1/24/12)
  • “Iran is bent on building nuclear weapons… The United States and I believe all the western nations have an overriding interest in containing the threat posed by Iran. Today, Iran is the principal sponsor of global terrorism… It seeks to undermine the west and its values by supporting the murderous attacks of the Islamic jihad, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. It aims to destroy the Middle East peace process.” – President Bill Clinton (5/7/95)

THE OPENING DAYS OF OPERATION EPIC FURY INVOLVED NO GROUND TROOPS AND IS IN LINE WITH PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS’ MILITARY OPERATIONS THAT NEVER TRIGGERED A WAR POWERS RESOLUTION VOTE

“But for 40 years, Presidents have taken the view that this language [the War Powers Resolution] does not include every single military operation. Presidents from both parties have undertaken military operations without express authorization from Congress.” – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) (6/28/11)

• According to the War Powers Resolution notification sent by President Trump to Congress on March 2, 2026:

• “No United States ground forces were used in these strikes, and the mission was planned and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties, deter future attacks, and neutralize Iran’s malign activities.” (Politico’s Jordain Carney: post on X – 3/2/26)

• 2011: “President Barack Obama launched an air campaign against Libya… Seven months later, in October 2011, after a military offensive backed by a group of Western powers, rebel forces conquered the North African country, located Gadhafi and killed him.” (Politico: Obama approves airstrikes against Libya, March 19, 2011 – 3/19/19)

• • Despite the Libya operation going far longer than the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day period, the Obama administration argued that the War Powers Resolution did not apply to the conflict:
  • “The nature, scope, and duration of the military operations [President Obama] ordered here did not rise to the level of war for constitutional purposes. So my second point. We do not believe that the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day automatic pullout provision applies to the limited Libya mission.” – Harold Koh, Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State (6/28/11)

• “In contending that the limited American role did not oblige the administration to ask for authorization under the War Powers Resolution, the report asserted that ‘U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.’” (NBC News: Obama: War Powers Act doesn’t apply to Libya – 6/15/11)

• 1994-1996: In response to a military coup against the first popularly elected president in Haitian history, President Clinton launched a multi-year operation that culminated in an invasion force of 25,000 U.S. troops to compel the Haitian military to return power. (U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian: Intervention in Haiti, 1994–1995 – accessed 3/3/26)

• 1992-1995: “Once President Clinton gives the word, the Pentagon is ready to send an estimated 20,000 U.S. troops into Bosnia as part of an overall NATO enforcement mission of 60,000 soldiers… [O]fficials would not say whether they would be sent there by Christmas. Nor were they clear about how they would know when it was time to bring the troops home.” (CNN: Pentagon boosts Bosnia peace plan – 11/23/95)

• • Even after the operation went past President Clinton’s stated deadline, Secretary of State William Cohen “argued that the War Powers Act should not be tested on a peacekeeping operation. If Congress did not want the troops to remain in Bosnia, all it had to do was to cut off the funding.” (The Associated Press: Cohen, Albright defend keeping troops in Bosnia – 3/18/98)

• 1989: The U.S. launched an operation in Panama, requiring 26,000 U.S. troops and “was the largest and most complex combat operation since the Vietnam War.” (U.S. Army: Operation Just Cause: the Invasion of Panama, December 1989 – 11/17/08; The New York Times: How the Heavy-Metal Fall of a Dictator Shapes Trump’s Venezuela Plans – 11/12/25)