Field Dossier: The Promised War

Iran didn’t escalate into war with Israel and the West. It was born at war with both — and spent 46 years building the arsenal to prove it.

On August 7, 1979, with the ink still wet on Khomeini's founding decrees, Iran declared the destruction of Israel a religious duty and built an army, a constitution, and a proxy empire to deliver it. What CNN calls the "Iran crisis" is the fulfillment of a promise made before most of today's policymakers were born. This dossier traces the whole architecture, including the part the West would rather forget: that for twenty-five years it didn't merely fail to stop the project, it funded it.

Khomeini promised the war. The IRGC built the war. The West financed the war. And the war is here.

The Israel Brief is the Mitzpe Institute's read on Israel and the region — most mornings, Sunday through Thursday. More at mitzpe.org.