As black toxic rain pours over Tehran and flames devour the Shahran oil depots, the predictable chorus has already begun: “Israel pushed America into another endless Middle East war.” Social media, certain Arab capitals and parts of the Western left are repeating the tired libel that Washington is acting as Jerusalem’s puppet, sacrificing American blood and treasure for the Jewish state.
They are not just wrong. They are rewriting history in real time.
The United States did not “attack Iran because of Israel.” America has been at war with the Islamic Republic for 47 years, long before most Israelis even dreamed of strategic cooperation with Washington. This is America’s own fight, rooted in American blood, American hostages and American strategic interests. Operation Epic Fury, launched on February 28, 2026, is not a favor to Benjamin Netanyahu. It is the overdue climax of a half-century blood feud that began the moment Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Let us remember the timeline the critics conveniently erase.
November 4, 1979: Iranian revolutionaries seize the American embassy and hold 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days. Jimmy Carter — no friend of Israel — watches America humiliated in front of the world. That was not about Israel. That was Iran declaring war on the “Great Satan.”
October 23, 1983: A Hezbollah suicide truck bomb, built and directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, demolishes the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. 241 American servicemen die in a single morning — the deadliest day for the U.S. military since Iwo Jima. U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who had his own differences with Israeli policy, calls it an Iranian act of war. Again, not about Israel. About Americans.
June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia are blown apart. Nineteen U.S. airmen murdered. The FBI and CIA trace it directly to the IRGC. President Bill Clinton’s administration — hardly a Netanyahu ally — knows exactly who did it.
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USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier
(Photo: AFP/ US NAVY / US CENTRAL COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
Then come the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Between 2003 and 2011, Iranian-supplied explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and rockets kill or wound more than 600 American soldiers. Tehran arms, trains and pays Shiite militias to bleed the U.S. military dry. Not a single Israeli soldier is involved. This is Iran’s private war against America.
Fast-forward to January 3, 2020. President Donald Trump orders the drone strike that eliminates Qassem Soleimani on Iraqi soil. The world holds its breath. Iran vows revenge. America answers with precision. Still no “Israeli pressure” required. Soleimani’s hands were drenched in American blood, not just Israeli.
And now, in 2026, the pattern repeats with chilling clarity. After Israel begins dismantling Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure, Tehran lashes out — not only at Israel, but directly at American interests. Iranian proxies and drones strike U.S. positions. American soldiers have already fallen in the retaliation phase of Operation Epic Fury. Iranian attacks on Gulf desalination plants threaten the energy lifeline that powers the global economy — an economy America has sworn to protect since World War II.
President Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender is not a sudden conversion to the Israeli cause. It is the same Trump who eliminated Soleimani, who walked away from the catastrophic JCPOA, and who understands that the Islamic Republic has never stopped viewing the United States as Enemy Number One. “Great Satan” is not a nickname for Tel Aviv. It is the title Tehran has reserved for Washington since day one.
The “Little Satan” — Israel — simply happens to be fighting the same enemy at the same time. That is called convergence of interests, not causation. Jerusalem did not drag Washington into this fight. Washington has been in this fight since before most Israelis were born.
Amine AyoubCritics who scream “Israel first” ignore a simple truth: Iran has spent billions building an empire of proxies precisely to hurt America — from Latin America to the Red Sea, from the Persian Gulf to the streets of Baghdad. The mullahs’ ideology has always placed the United States at the top of the target list. Israel is the bonus kill. The fact that Israeli and American forces are now operating in parallel — with U.S. strikes on regime oil infrastructure and leadership targets — only proves the enemy was mutual all along.
This is why the alliance works. Not because one side controls the other, but because two sovereign democracies recognize the same existential threat. America is not sacrificing for Israel. America is defending itself, its soldiers, its economy and its global credibility — exactly as it has done since 1979.
- Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco