The Long Shadow of 1979: How Putin Influenced the Ongoing Conflict with Iran

By Maury Blackman

June 14, 2025

The headlines this week say “Israel strikes Iran.” But the truth is: this conflict didn’t start yesterday. It didn’t start last week, last year, or even in the last decade.

It began in 1979 — when a band of extremists stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. It was one of the most brazen attacks on American sovereignty in modern history. And the West, paralyzed by fear and indecision, let it slide.

That was the spark. Everything that followed — the terrorism, the nuclear ambitions, the proxy wars, the missile strikes, the regional destabilization — flows from the moment we failed to confront the Islamic Republic for what it was: a radical theocracy built on anti-Western ideology and apocalyptic zealotry.

Appeasement by Diplomacy

For more than four decades, Iran has mastered the art of negotiating without ever intending to concede. The regime’s strategy has always been the same: prolong talks, split Western allies, signal moderation, and run out the clock.

We saw it during the JCPOA negotiations. We saw it in nuclear oversight discussions. We saw it in countless U.N. resolutions that produced more photo ops than results. Iran drags the world to the table, promises just enough to ease pressure, and then breaks every promise the moment leverage returns.

This wasn’t diplomacy. It was delay as doctrine.

And now, after decades of drawn-out talks and half-hearted enforcement, Iran stands at the brink of nuclear capability. They enriched uranium while buying time. They played nice while backing terrorists. They offered dialogue while planning the destruction of Israel.

This past week, that strategy finally met its limit.

Israel Drew the Line

Let’s be honest about what happened in “Operation Rising Lion.” This wasn’t a reckless provocation — it was a last resort. Israel didn’t choose this war. Iran brought it to their doorstep.

For years, the Islamic Republic has armed Hezbollah, funded Palestinian militias, and helped entrench Hamas in Gaza. It’s fired rockets, launched drones, and attempted assassinations on Israeli soil. And recently, it crossed a new line by launching hundreds of drones and missiles directly at Israeli cities.

No nation — certainly not one surrounded by adversaries — can tolerate that kind of provocation without responding. And yet, when Israel finally acted to defend itself, striking Iranian nuclear and military targets, much of the world reacted with confusion. As if this escalation came out of nowhere.

It didn’t. This was decades in the making.

Putin’s War and the Global Chain Reaction

But to understand why this week is different — why this moment feels like the beginning of a broader unraveling — you have to look further east. You have to look to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the world saw it as a European crisis. A localized tragedy. A matter of NATO borders and sanctions. But that framing ignored the real danger: that Putin’s aggression, and our failure to decisively confront it, would embolden other authoritarian regimes across the globe.

And that’s exactly what happened.

Iran watched closely as the West debated whether to send tanks or planes. It watched Germany dither, America hedge, and Ukraine beg. It watched Putin commit war crimes with impunity, then shake hands with Chinese and Middle Eastern leaders weeks later.

It learned a simple truth: if Russia can get away with it, so can we.

So Iran deepened its ties with Moscow. It sold Putin thousands of Shahed drones — now terrorizing Ukrainian cities. It shared military tech. And it leaned into the idea that the new world order wasn’t governed by law or restraint, but by brute force and long games.

Iran saw an opening — and took it.

The Fanatics Can’t Be Reformed

Some still argue for diplomacy. They say we need a ceasefire, a cooling-off period, a chance for the Ayatollah’s regime to “step back from the brink.”

But let’s not kid ourselves. The Iranian regime is not a misunderstood actor seeking security guarantees. It is a fundamentalist theocracy that thrives on chaos, martyrdom, and the dream of regional domination. It cannot be appeased, moderated, or reformed. It must be replaced — peacefully, if possible; inevitably, one way or another.

That’s not a call for invasion. It’s a call for truth.

The Iranian people deserve better. More than 60% of Iran’s population was born after the 1979 revolution. They’ve grown up under repression, surveillance, and economic ruin. They don’t want missiles. They want jobs. They don’t chant “Death to America.” They chant for freedom.

This conflict will not truly end until the Iranian people have the right to choose a government that represents them — not a band of clerics trapped in a centuries-old death cult.

The Beginning of the End

What we are witnessing now may not be the final chapter. Iran will almost certainly escalate — through Hezbollah, through cyberattacks, through asymmetric warfare. This will get worse before it gets better.

But it is a turning point.

It is the moment the free world — led, for once, by Israel — stopped pretending the regime in Tehran could be reasoned with. It is the moment delay gave way to decisiveness. It is the moment Iran’s long game hit a wall.

And yes — it is, in every meaningful sense, the beginning of the end.

History will write that the seeds were planted in 1979. That they were watered by the West’s wishful thinking. And that they grew under the protective shadow of Putin’s war.

But history may also write that in 2025, the tide finally turned.