Hoover Institute Fellow and historian Niall Ferguson, on “The Free Press” podcast, explains why military action against Iran is necessary and in America’s interest.

RAFAELA SIEWERT, THE FREE PRESS: I want to link this to a question that’s coming from the audience right now, which is, people look at this conflict, they see it as hundreds of miles away, they worry about increase in oil prices as a result, and someone asks, you know, please help me explain to my 30-year-old son who works hard but cannot afford to buy even a small home, why the US’s leadership in overthrowing the Iranian government is putting America first. Why is this in America’s interest? NIALL FERGUSON, THE FREE PRESS: Well, President Trump spelt out in his address last night that this is, in some measure, a preemptive act to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, as well as a battery of missiles that can deliver them, not only deliver them locally in the Middle East, but potentially further afield, potentially against European targets, as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett pointed out in an interview earlier today. I don’t think anybody could claim the Iranians were about to strike heartland America, but President Trump and others have pointed out that Iran has been waging war against Americans, this regime has been waging war against Americans well since 1979, and after half a century of being one of the worst actors in the world, President Trump has called time on it. I think it’s worth saying to any 30-year-old son, or indeed to teenage sons and daughters, if you have them, that Iran has been one of the world’s principal sponsors of terrorism over this half century, and many lives have been lost in every decade since then. American lives, the Iranians were responsible for many of the deaths, for example, in Iraq, and certainly Iran was the principal sponsor of Hamas and Palestinian-Islamic jihad when they carried out the October 7th, 2023 attacks. So part of the answer to the question is that this regime was in the last chance saloon, and when they slaughtered nearly 40,000 of their own people in early January, crushing popular protests, I think the Iranian leadership lost what little shreds of legitimacy they had left.

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