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Source: https://jcfa.org/understanding-irans-imminent-threat-to-america/
Understanding Iran's Imminent Threat to America
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Dr. Dan Diker and Tirza Shorr - When the U.S. and Israel launched coordinated strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, critics charged that there was no imminent threat to the U.S. These critics are mistaken. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its global proxy network have killed more than 1,000 Americans since 1979. Iranian-backed forces conducted over 180 attacks on U.S. military bases in 2023–2024 alone. Iran's stockpile of 60% highly enriched uranium reached a breakout threshold for nuclear weapons before the June 2025 strikes. The question is not whether Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. The question is why it took 47 years to respond to its longstanding threats. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who headed the CIA in the 1990s, determined that the Iranian nuclear program has constituted an imminent threat: "If their policy is to go to the threshold but not assemble a nuclear weapon, how do you tell that they have not assembled?" By the time the U.S. knows with certainty that Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold, it may be too late to act. Ayatollah Khomeini's designation of America as the "Great Satan" was not political rhetoric. It was a theological ruling encoding the elimination of American influence as a religious obligation of the revolutionary state. "Death to America" has been operational doctrine since 1979 - chanted at official rallies, printed on state banners, and repeated by Supreme Leader Khamenei at the close of diplomatic speeches, including during nuclear talks in February 2026, just days before the strikes. Iran's nuclear program transforms its hostility into an existential and irreversible threat. According to the last verified IAEA inventory before the June 2025 strikes, Iran held 9,875 kg. of enriched uranium, including 440 kg. enriched to 60% purity - far beyond any civilian energy requirement. The IAEA Director General warned in April 2025 that Iran was months from potential weaponization. The Islamic Republic of Iran built the Middle East's largest ballistic missile arsenal, an advanced drone program, a five-country proxy network, a narco-terror enterprise operating inside the U.S., and a uranium stockpile assessed at one week from nuclear weapons-grade breakout. Dr. Dan Diker is President of the Jerusalem Center, where Tirza Shorr is a senior researcher.