Since its violent revolutionary founding, the Islamic Republic of Iran has spread chaos around the world, attempted to assassinate Americans on our own soil and vowed to destroy Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East. America remains far stronger than Iran, yet a Kamala Harris presidency would empower this terrorist regime to do far worse.  

Every American should be deeply concerned that Vice President Harris’s weakness would only continue Joe Biden’s policy of emboldening and enriching Iran. 

For decades, Iran — directly and through proxies — has committed and underwritten terrorism with the explicit goal of killing Americans and expelling us from the Middle East so that the ayatollahs can dominate this vital region.  

The ayatollahs came to power in 1979, holding more than 50 Americans hostage for more than a year during the Carter administration. In 1983, Iran and its terror proxies murdered hundreds of American Marines stationed in Beirut. And during the Bush administration, Iran’s proxies kidnapped Americans in Lebanon and murdered U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia. 

The terror campaign continued against our troops in Iraq, which I saw firsthand as Iranian-backed terrorists killed hundreds of Americans. Iran, by the best estimates, was responsible for more than 600 American deaths in Iraq. 

In contrast to the Obama administration’s weakness, Iran largely pulled in its horns during the Trump presidency for a simple reason — the ayatollahs once again feared America.  

Under President Donald Trump, Iran’s economy went into free fall, limiting its ability to fund its shock troops around the world. Afraid of American retaliation, Iran and its proxies didn’t carry out major terrorist attacks. And the Iranian nuclear program was mostly contained after the U.S. removed itself from Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s unenforceable Iran deal. 

Sadly — and dangerously — none of that is true today.    

Thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s refusal to enforce sanctions, Iran’s economy has rebounded and even expanded. Iran’s oil exports have more than quadrupled, giving it the cash to fund attacks on our troops in the Middle East and our allies, as well as assassination plots against Trump and others. The Biden administration even used U.S. taxpayer dollars to pay ransom to Tehran for wrongly detained prisoners.    

Today, Iran is not deterred, as our military commander in the region confirmed when I questioned him in a congressional hearing in March.    

The ayatollahs are killing American troops, and they’re responsible for supporting Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. They’re funding their proxies across the Middle East; Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan have attacked U.S. forces more than 175 times since October 7. In response, we have responded an anemic 11 times as of July 30.   

But as bad as Biden has been, Kamala Harris’s policies are — and would be — far worse.   

As vice president, she has surrounded herself with pro-Iran advisors: her National Security Advisor Phil Gordon is linked to a senior Pentagon official reportedly involved in an Iranian influence operation. At the same time, she has tried to bully Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting Hamas’s ceasefire demands.  

And if she becomes president, Harris would kill American energy production, benefiting Iran with higher oil prices.  

Harris’s weak, conciliatory views towards the ayatollahs, combined with her catering to the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party, would gravely endanger our national security and undermine the confidence and security of our allies. 

For decades, Iran — directly and through proxies — has committed and underwritten terrorism with the explicit goal of killing Americans and expelling us from the Middle East so that the ayatollahs can dominate this vital region.  

Instead, what America needs is peace through strength — something Harris will not and cannot deliver. What we need is a return of President Trump and his successful policies to the White House.,

He killed Qasem Soleimani and deterred further attacks by Iran. That’s the strong, decisive leadership America needs: instead of appeasing the ayatollahs, Trump stood up to them. It worked once, and he can do it again.