American Presidents have had Iran in their sights for decades. When Bill Clinton warned of “rogue states” in the nineteen-nineties, Iran was the first example he gave. When George W. Bush spoke of a three-country “axis of evil” in 2002, Iran was in it. In 2019, Donald Trump designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time another country’s military had been thus classified. Nor is it clear that Kamala Harris would have reversed that designation had she won the 2024 election. When asked to name the United States’ greatest adversary, she replied that the answer was “obvious.” Iran, she explained, has “American blood” on its hands.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter