Introduction
For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran has tried to wear two masks at once.
One was diplomatic: a sovereign state demanding respect, sanctions relief, and a seat at every negotiating table.
The other was operational: a regime that armed, financed, trained, and sheltered violent proxies across the Middle East and beyond.
The United States still designates Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, and the State Department continues to describe it as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. That is not a fringe claim. That is the standing position of the U.S. government.
This is the point polite analysts dance around: Iran’s rulers did not merely tolerate terrorism. They integrated it into statecraft. Tehran backed Hizballah in Lebanon, supported Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and sustained a network of militias and armed clients stretching through Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza. Treasury and State Department materials repeatedly describe financial, logistical, and military links between the Iranian regime—especially the IRGC-Qods Force—and groups already designated by the United States as terrorist organizations or terror-linked armed proxies.
The record is not abstract. It is written in body counts and rubble.
The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 U.S. service members, including 220 Marines, and the CIA’s historical account ties the Beirut attacks to Hizballah and Islamic Jihad Organization.
The 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 22 people.
The 1994 AMIA bombing killed 85. The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing killed 19 U.S. airmen.
These are not internet rumors or partisan talking points. They are part of the long public record of Iran-linked terrorism and proxy violence.
Even when the regime was not directly detonating bombs, it was building and feeding the infrastructure that made them possible.
Treasury has documented networks moving money from the IRGC-Qods Force to Hamas and Hizballah, and more recent sanctions actions continue to describe Iran-financed channels that support Hizballah, the Houthis, and other armed actors.
In plain English: Tehran did not just cheer from the sidelines.
It paid the bills.
And while the regime exported violence abroad, it brutalized its own people at home.
Human Rights Watch has documented the 1988 mass executions, estimating that Iranian authorities executed between 2,800 and 5,000 prisoners in at least 32 cities.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also documented hundreds of unlawful killings during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, mass arrests, torture, disappearances, and continuing protest crackdowns.
The U.N. human rights office said at least 901 people were reportedly executed in Iran in 2024 alone, and Amnesty reported that executions surpassed 1,000 in 2025. This is not merely an aggressive regime. It is a regime that has been vicious to its own citizens for decades.
That is why the usual Western posture toward Iran always rang hollow. For years, too many policymakers treated Tehran like a difficult but ordinary government that could be domesticated through enough meetings, enough waivers, enough euphemisms, and enough strategic patience.
But a government that treats terror as leverage is not simply “misunderstood.”
A government that bankrolls proxies while hanging dissidents at home is not simply “complicated.”
The problem was never that the world failed to understand the Iranian regime. The problem was that too many powerful people understood it perfectly well and chose to manage it instead of confront it.
This is where Donald Trump’s approach mattered.
Whatever one thinks of his style, his administration did something previous administrations often hesitated to do: it treated the regime itself—not just this or that incident—as the core problem.
Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018, reimposed sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors, and pursued what became known as “maximum pressure.” Reuters noted that those sanctions targeted Iran’s oil revenues and international banking transactions and were designed to curb Tehran’s missile program, nuclear ambitions, and regional influence through armed militias. That was not diplomatic nicety. It was strategic clarity.
The same pattern showed up in the killing of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Reuters described Soleimani as the commander who helped Iran fight proxy wars across the Middle East. He was not some harmless bureaucrat in a suit. He was one of the chief architects of the very militia network that spread Iranian power through deniable violence.
You can dislike escalation and still admit the obvious: taking Soleimani off the board was a direct strike at the machinery of proxy war.
Now, to stay honest, it is too neat to say Trump already “ended” a 46-year scourge as a settled historical fact.
That is more claim than proof at this point. Iran’s regime has been wounded, sanctioned, isolated, and repeatedly exposed. But whether its project is over, or merely weakened, depends on what happens next. Even Reuters’ recent reporting shows the regime’s power structure still trying to reconstitute itself after major shocks, while Treasury continues to announce fresh sanctions tied to oil sales, weapons programs, and terror-linked financing. So the accurate version is this: Trump was far more willing than many of his predecessors to confront the regime as the source of the problem, and that harder line changed the strategic environment. Whether it proves to be the final chapter remains to be seen.
Still, one moral point should not be blurred. The Iranian people are not the regime. That distinction matters. Millions of Iranians have paid the price for the ambitions of clerics, security services, and revolutionary institutions that claim to speak in their name. The proper target of moral condemnation is the ruling apparatus: the Supreme Leader system, the IRGC, the Qods Force, the terror-financing networks, and the repressive internal security state. A freer Iran would not be a tragedy. It would be an improvement for Iranians first, and very likely for the region as well.
The bottom line is simple.
The world did not invent the Islamic Republic’s reputation.
The regime earned it.
It earned it through Beirut.
Through Buenos Aires.
Through Khobar.
Through proxy militias.
Through terror finance.
Through prison massacres.
Through hangings, crackdowns, disappearances, and the routine destruction of its own citizens’ liberty.
A regime with that record does not deserve romanticism, and it does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
It deserves to be named clearly for what it has been: one of the modern world’s most durable engines of state-backed terror and repression.
Why This Matters
Bad ideas survive on soft language.
When a regime spends decades using proxies, terror finance, hostage politics, and domestic repression, calling it “complex” is not sophistication.
It is evasion.
Clarity matters because public language shapes public tolerance.
The more plainly the regime is described, the harder it becomes for policymakers, media figures, and institutions to launder brutality into diplomacy-by-habit.
References
U.S. Department of State. State Sponsors of Terrorism.
U.S. Department of State. Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Iran.
U.S. Department of State. Country Reports on Terrorism 2023.
Congressional Research Service. U.S.-Iran Conflict and Implications for U.S. Policy.
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Targets Facilitators Moving Millions to HAMAS in Gaza from Iran.
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Designates Illicit Russia-Iran Oil Network Providing Funds to IRGC-QF, HAMAS, and Hizballah.
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Targets Qods Force, Houthi, and Hizballah Financing Network.
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Targets Hizballah Finance Network and Syrian Facilitators.
Human Rights Watch. Iran: 1988 Mass Executions Evident Crimes Against Humanity.
Human Rights Watch. Iran: Tsunami of Arbitrary Arrests, Enforced Disappearances.
Human Rights Watch. Iran: Authorities’ Renewed Cycle of Protest Bloodshed.
Amnesty International. Iran: One year after uprising, international community must combat impunity for brutal crackdown.
Amnesty International. Iran: Two years after “Woman Life Freedom” uprising, impunity for crimes reigns supreme.
Amnesty International. Iran: Authorities must halt executions after horrifying increase.
UN Human Rights Office / UNifeed. Iran 2024 Executions.
Reuters. Iran braces for Trump victory, fearing more Israeli strikes, Western sanctions.
Reuters. Coronavirus and sanctions hit Iran’s support of proxies in Iraq.
Reuters. Soleimani was Iran’s celebrity soldier, spearhead in Middle East proxy wars.
Reuters. U.S. expands sanctions on Iran over oil sales, weapons programs.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this post are opinions of the author for educational and commentary purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual or organization, and should not be construed as legal, medical, or financial advice. References to public figures and institutions are based on publicly available sources cited in the article. Any resemblance beyond these references is coincidental.
