As an Iranian who has spent years studying “Islamic terrorism” in the Middle East and repeatedly writing about the terrorist structures of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, and the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence, I want to speak candidly to America’s soldiers, pilots, intelligence officers, and military planners. If the United States is drawn into another war with Tehran, it will confront not the Iranian nation but a revolutionary regime that has made terrorism, hostage-taking, proxy warfare, and permanent crisis instruments of statecraft.

Generations of Americans before you fought and died confronting Nazism, communism, apartheid, and Stalinism. This time, the battlefield is different. You may be going to war against the most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism in the world — an evil regime that exports terrorism, war, and instability far beyond Iran’s borders. Do not confuse this regime with Iran, and do not allow its propaganda to turn the Iranian people as human shields. The Islamic caliphate of Shia mullahs is not Iran. The men and women of Iran are not the enemy. If American forces are sent into this confrontation, they will be fighting the machinery of terrorism that has oppressed Iranians at home while threatening Americans, Israelis, and others abroad.