This is a short history of our problems with Iran. There is a much bigger picture to look at. I hate to be the one to say it but our past administrations are part of the problem and we do have to take part of the blame. But that does not mean that we lay down and give up.

The Iranian government has plans for the Great Satan. The Great Satan is what America and Americans are looked upon as. We are the non-believers, we are the infidels. The Ayatollahs of Iran want America and Israel to be totally destroyed. They do not want even as much as a stone to be left behind.

The hate these Ayatollahs have for the United States and Israel, did not just start when Israel became a state in 1948. This hate for the Israelis goes back some 2000 years.

For America, the hate goes back to just recent years. That is what some people think. Others will tell you it goes back to 1979 when the Islamic Republican Party took over the American Embassy in Tehran, in which Islamic radicalized students held 50 hostages for 444 days.

Tt does not. It goes back to August of 1953.

During that month, the American government allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to engage in a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh.

This would be the first time — but not the last — that the CIA would successfully overthrow a foreign government.

During this period, Gen. Fazollah Zahdei was in charge of the coup that almost fell apart, but it didn’t. That was to be the beginning of our modern-day problems with Iran, the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard.

This coup would set the stage for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah, to be put into total power over the Iranian people. This puppet government, backed by the U.S. with the CIA doing it’s dirty work, would last no more than 26 years — 26 years of pure hell for the average Iranian man and woman.

By the mid 1970s, the Shah reigned with the heaviest of hands over his people. There was widespread discontent by the continuing repressiveness of his regime. Socioeconomic changes benefited some classes at the expense of others, and the increasing gap between the ruling elite and the disaffected populace under his rule would lead to the loss of civic and political liberties.

With this power grab, he had help by the Savak, his secret police. With the coup and the CIA, this all led to the roots of our modern-day problems and relations between the U.S. and the leadership of the Iranians.

The Shah’s government collapsed following widespread uprisings in 1978-1979 and consequently the Islamic Republic succeeded his regime. In 1979, this shift in power reverberated throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world. This change would cast a long dark shadow over U.S.-Iranian relations that extends to the present day.

In 1979, the Radical Islamic Republic under exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollan Komeini came to power and Komeini came out of exile. I believe he had been exiled to France. In January of 1979, the deposed Shah Reza Pahlavi fled Iran — now it would be the Shah who would go into exile.

His exile would be short-lived, as he would die on July 27, 1980 in Cairo, Egypt from cancer. I do not know the exact date when he came to America for treatment, but this would add to our problems with the radicalized Ayatollah Komeini.

From that time in world history to the present day, the Iranian clerics have been dead set on bringing America to its knees. We have fought them in Iraq and Afghanistan in proxy wars. Far too many of our sons and daughters have been killed by Iranian arms and ammunition. So why would you think that they would have taken the last three years and just let their nuclear program set idle?

They have not. I have said it in the past, the powers at work in Iran truly hate America and want to see total destruction of our way of life. The appeasement that was at play within Obama’s administration will lead to our destruction. Iran will not be happy until Islam is the religion of the world.

When Secretary of State John Kerry entered into negotiations with Iranian leaders to dismantle their nuclear program, we lost our edge; for at that point, the Iranians saw that we would do anything to have peace with them. Our administration dropped the ball that day. Our leadership blinked when they should have stood fast with the sanctions that were in place.

We gave them more time at a time when the world did not, and does not, have the time to just sit back and do nothing. I fear that Iran, with the help of North Korea, is way closer than anyone thinks to having an atomic bomb.

I believe Obama was willing to just sit back and allow this to happen. I also believe in the very near future Israel will strike out at Iran. Israel cannot and will not allow another holocaust to claim more Israeli lives.

More and more of this appeasement will allow Iran nothing but more time to do what most of us know they will do: attack Israel with full force.

I know some do not like me talking about Great Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain making peace — or trying to — with Hitler in 1938. They will tell you he had to because Britain was not ready to fight a war. That one year allowed the German war machine to build up and run wild throughout Europe until the Allies got the upper hand and destroyed Germany in 1945.

This pure hell on earth was unleashed on Sept. 1 1939 with the attack on Poland. This went on for almost six years. More than 60 million people were slaughtered worldwide. This was all done with conventional weapons by men gone mad with power.

Present day and we see more men gone mad with power. This new maddening power is backed by religion. It is not true religion. It is no more than mortal men who would use religion as their backbone.

Radicalized hate of a few has run to the four corners of the globe. The Iranians see America as a country of weak people. They are blind to the truth our people are not weak — we are a country of fighters. The Iranian people, for the most part, are no different then the American people. They want peace as we do.

The weakness was projected by our past leadership. Every time we have tried to work out our problems with the Iranian leadership, the negotiations would break down. They have broke agreement after agreement with the same outcome. They got what they wanted: more time.

Nothing has been dismantled when it comes to their nuclear program. They get stronger while the West gets weaker in sprite and capability. Today, Iran now has the capability of sending missiles to Europe and the United States. In recent months, Iran showed the world their nine-story tall missile that could be launched at the U.S. and Israel. I pray that day will never come. If and when they can put a nuke on the tip of this missile, Israel will get the first taste — then we will get the second bite. I think the world can do without this dish of hell that Iran wants to serve to the non-believers.

That is the reason why I feel what Trump did by getting out of this B.S. agreement was the best thing for America. Of course, those doing business with Iran (the Europeans) did not see it that way. Iran has $150 billion to spend.

Robert Lee is a concerned citizen and U.S. Marine veteran who owns and operates Rockingham Guns and Ammo. His column appears here each Saturday.

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Robert Lee

Contributing columnist