Iran: The Regime That Bankrolls Global Terror

A primer on 40 years of Iranian-funded death — and why it still matters today.

While Washington debates red lines and diplomats draft agreements, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been running the world’s most sophisticated terror financing operation for over four decades. Not covertly. Not ambiguously. Openly. Proudly. Repeatedly.

This isn’t a partisan talking point. It’s the conclusion of the U.S. State Department, which has designated Iran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism every single year since 1984. Forty consecutive years. Every administration. Both parties.

So what does $100 billion in terror funding actually look like in practice?

It looks like the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing — 241 U.S. Marines killed in their sleep, Hezbollah’s fingerprints all over it, Iran’s money and training behind the operation. It looks like the Khobar Towers attack in 1996 (19 U.S. airmen). It looks like Iranian-supplied Explosively Formed Penetrators — a particularly nasty IED variant — killing American soldiers in Iraq throughout the 2000s. The Pentagon estimated Iranian weapons were responsible for 17% of all U.S. combat deaths in Iraq. That’s not collateral damage. That’s a war Iran was fighting against us while we pretended otherwise.

It looks like October 7, 2023 — where Hamas, funded to the tune of $100M+ annually by Tehran, launched the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Iranian officials didn’t just acknowledge their role. They celebrated it.

“The operation was 100% a success.” — Senior Hamas official, crediting Iranian funding and intelligence coordination, October 2023

The regime’s proxy network now spans 17 countries. Hezbollah in Lebanon ($700M/year, 150,000+ rockets). Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The Houthis in Yemen — who have launched 160+ attacks on Red Sea shipping since October 2023, disrupting global trade. Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, which launched 100+ drone and rocket attacks on U.S. bases in a single year. The Popular Mobilization Forces with 100,000+ fighters. The IRGC Quds Force running assassination plots in Washington D.C., Paris, and Berlin.

Iran doesn’t just fund these groups. It trains them, arms them, coordinates them, and gives them strategic direction. It’s a franchise model for mass murder, and Tehran is the franchisor.

The nuclear program sits underneath all of this like a lit fuse. Iran is now enriching uranium to 60% purity — weapons grade is 90%. With 19,000 centrifuges running, analysts now measure the breakout timeline in weeks, not years. Every proxy war, every terror attack, every hostage negotiation has been buying time for the bomb.

I’ve put together an interactive intelligence briefing that maps the full scope of this — the proxy network, the funding flows, the U.S. casualties, the nuclear timeline, and the October 7 connection. Charts, data, 40 years of documented history in one place.

→ Read the full briefing: justinhart.biz/iran

The strikes this week are a beginning, not an end. Understanding what we’re actually dealing with — not the diplomatic abstraction, but the real operational machinery — is step one.

📊 Explore the full interactive dashboard → justinhart.biz/iran
Proxy network, funding charts, attack timeline, nuclear status, October 7 connection — all sourced and interactive.