Sometimes you don’t get a choice to eliminate a problem. You just learn to live with it and work around it. Muggsy Bogues learned to compete at the highest levels in the NBA despite needing a step stool to get anything out of his top freezer. His quickness and understanding of the game made him a real force for nearly 14 years. Barbra Streisand learned to use her voice and personality to attract audiences and men when her physical looks were not considered much of a draw. Sometimes you just make do with what you have and find another approach.

Forty-Seven Years of Workarounds

And sometimes you solve the problem. For 47 years we have looked for workarounds with Iran. We’ve stayed away from them. We’ve ignored their actions in hopes that the petulant child would quit out of frustration for the lack of attention. We’ve embargoed them. We’ve paid them off to the tune of $Billions. We’ve even watched as the Iranian regime was given support and prestigious positions in the UN. After tinkering around the edges, Israel and the United States determined enough was enough. Nothing else was working.

Iran’s Ideology Is Not Just Different. It Is Dangerous.

To explain what wasn't working, let’s start with Iran’s stated intent for 47 years—death to America and the extermination of the Jewish Nation. Not in subtle ways, or with angry scowls or frustration with any one American President. Instead, through hundreds of speeches by Iranian leaders, official slogans and chants, military statements, and overall messaging. Literally thousands of times in documents statements and messages has the Iranian government and its leaders called for the death of America and extermination of the Jewish race. The first Ayatollah was the one who coined the phrase “The Great Satan”, and that messaging has continued without a halt for those 47 years. Calls for the United States’ death and Jewish extinction are even part of their weekly prayer calls. There is no ambivalence about the thousands of stated aims of the Iranian Regime in their mission and vision statement. Their web page is pretty clear.

Global Propaganda and Influence

Iran’s messaging has found a home to our detriment literally around the globe.From Middle Eastern terror groups to pockets of American and Jewish haters around the world and even in the US, their influence is cancerous and growing.The religion of Islam is used to foment hatred against those who disagree with their faith and politics.Iran is not the only source of this hatred, but they are the leading voice.

Offensive Military Buildup

The next key indicator of intent demonstrates itself through its military buildup. Every nation reserves the right to arm and protect themselves and their interest, but Iran’s focus on long range weapons (medium range ballistic missiles, attack drones, weaponized UAVs, and intercontinental ballistic missiles to name a few) demonstrates an offensive intent well beyond its own borders and the interests of the nation.

Direct Attacks

The US, Israel and our allies have been on the receiving end of direct hostile actions from Iran about a dozen times since 1979. With the increase in their long-range capabilities these attacks have increased dramatically in size and scope. Their rapid weapons development, production and procurement programs guaranteed that these attacks—once rare—would increase in regularity and lethality. It is as if the Ayatollah and his followers felt like they were approaching the ability to realize their vision.

Proxy Warfare

The greater influence the Iranian regime has wielded on the world has been through their proxies. Many estimates put the Iranian funding of Islamic terrorist groups and pseudo nations at around ~$1-1.6B annually, with those funds focused on Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Iraqi Shia militias. This funding feeds terrorist cells, militias and subversive networks across the world. Estimates put their influence over an ‘army’ of around 400,000 fighters of varying sorts. They provide cash, training, weapons and structural support to these groups to attack the United States, Israel and our allies in a variety of ways. Many estimates find that up to 90% of the funding for Shia groups comes from Iran. They are, without question, the largest state sponsor of terror in the world.

Iran’s investments in proxies have been well-placed, successful and enduring. Beginning with the Embassy hostages in 1979, through the brutal attacks in Beirut and elsewhere in the 80’s, to the Khobar towers bombing in 1996, the persistent militia arming, training and leading in Iraq, the literally thousands of attacks on US forces in Iraq, and the thousands of attacks on Israel, Iran has been a force of terror and instability across the Middle East. Death has become an uncertain companion for anyone in the region because of Iran’s follow through on their stated goals.

For nearly fifty years, Iran’s combination of ideological rhetoric, funding and training of proxies, and both direct and indirect attacks have increased instability in a region weary of war and looking for peace. They are a drain on the resources of the US, Israel and our allies.They are the problem that won’t go away.

Going Forward

We’ve tried to play nice. We’ve tried to bribe Iran. We’ve tried to downplay the effects of their efforts against us. And we have tried to ignore them. None of it has worked. Much of the rest of the ‘allied’ world has complained about Iran but been unwilling to do anything about their aggression.

The current campaign may not be the solution, but the chances of success are much higher than all the failed policies of the past. The road ahead still presents many opportunities to make it just as bad or worse. But thus far, speed, intelligence, kindness and grit have not been enough. It is time for growth hormones and a nose job.