There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the new conflict with the United States attacking Iran. Between the mass executions, unfair laws of their country, and that they are a national security threat, to me, this should not be as controversial for many reasons. What the United States is doing is necessary.
To start, what has been happening in Iran for the past 30 years is nothing short of terrible and has escalated in the past couple of months. Since January, the Iranian government has killed approximately 5,000 people, with some reports saying up to 30,000 of its own civilians—and for what? They are murdering their own civilians simply because they are protesting [1].
The protests in Iran , which started in September of 2022 are calling for an end to the Islamic Republic system, which is an authoritarian theocracy revolving around the beliefs of Shia Islam.
Many people in America truly do not understand the harsh laws that affect certain groups of people, specifically Iranian women [2]. For example, there are laws in their country that prohibit women from traveling without written consent from their husband, force all women to wear a hijab, and require them to dress modestly—which, according to the Iranian government, means not showing any skin besides their hands and face. The laws also prevent women from having jobs that their husbands deem not in the interest of their family. All of these are punishable by jail time. That is not all, though.
Within a marriage, the male has an “incontestable right” to divorce his wife at any point for any reason. The female in the marriage does not have it that easy. Women are forced to prove domestic abuse, drug addiction, or abandonment, which can be very difficult. If they cannot, they will not be granted a divorce. If there is a divorce, women are only given custody priority until the child is seven. Legal guardianship is always maintained by the father or the paternal grandfather. If a woman remarries, she will often lose custody.
Understandably, women in Iran do not like these laws and started a movement called “Woman, Life, Freedom” after Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a woman who was arrested for wearing the hijab improperly, unexpectedly died while in custody. Many women decided to walk together without the hijab after this as a form of protest. This movement has since expanded and is now focusing on other issues as well, like the economic crisis, due to the 40–50% inflation rate within the past two years.
There have been around 2,000 executions in Iran since 2025, and 11 of these have been directly linked to being part of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement [3]. Those 2,000 executions have widely been used as a political scare tactic to deter people from going against or even speaking out against the government. Iran has also detained 15,000–20,000 of these protesters.
In America we are privileged, many freedoms that we have are only a dream to the Iranian population. We have the freedom of expression, this makes it our constitutional right to openly oppose the government. In Iran if you criticize the supreme leader, you can face imprisonment, torture, or death. Freedom of assembly is another right that we have. In Iran it is technically legal to march or protest, many times these are suppressed using force such as live ammunition (shooting real bullets) at them. Being a part of the LGBTQ community or committing homosexual acts, something that is protected in America is punishable by death in Iran. The court system of Iran is awful as well. People are arrested without due process and the prisoners are subject to wide spread and systematic torture.
Iran is also a national security threat. It has been well known that Iran has made many threats toward the United States in the past but has always been incapable of following through. Still, Iran is unable to reach the United States with its missiles, only being able to reach around 3,000 km (1,864 miles) using their Soumar land-attack cruise missile [4]. However, more recently, they have started to stockpile and enrich uranium to 60 percent [5]. Ninety percent is the threshold where they would actually be capable of making a nuclear bomb. Iran is currently in possession of 440 kg of 60 percent enriched uranium. Some estimates say it would take as little as one day to one week for Iran to increase it from 60 percent to 90 percent enrichment. While 440 kg of uranium may not seem like a lot, the nuclear warhead “Little Boy” that the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II only contained 64 kilograms of uranium with an average enrichment of about 80 percent. This puts the United States in a very serious situation, especially knowing the catastrophic damage a less effective nuclear weapon did to an entire city—in fact, it completely wiped it out. Iran is one of the last countries that should be in possession of one of these bombs, especially considering its support of groups like Hezbollah.
In all, I feel that the United States is not in the wrong for their involvement in Iran because of the treatment toward their own population and because of the fact Iran is a complete national security threat and known for their state sponsor of terrorism. If we allow Iran to obtain weapons of mass destruction there is no knowing what they may do with them, it is time to intervene to not only protect the U.S but also the world.
