On Sept. 11, 2001, Muslim fanatics flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing upward of 3,000 innocent American civilians.

Americans asked why?

We ask again today. We hear from the Iranian regime, “Death to America,” “Death to Israel.”

Why? The unfortunate answer is, for the fanatics in Iran, our very existence is sufficient reason for them to serve up a death sentence.

Israel was born in the ashes of the Holocaust, in which almost 40% of the entire world’s Jewish population was murdered.

But the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denies it happened.

Per Khamenei, “In European countries that claim to be civilized, when a person expresses his objection to the myth of the Holocaust, they throw him into prison. They sentence him to jail for denying a fictitious event.”

President Donald Trump has acted boldly, in the best of the tradition of our country, to take military action to prevent maniacs who think they are God’s messenger from possessing nuclear weapons.

We might recall two Republican presidents who helped set the great American tradition that Trump now carries forward.

Recently, Trump presided over a military parade in Washington noting the 250th anniversary of the United States Army.

Let’s recall a great general of our Army who became a Republican president — Dwight D. Eisenhower.

We are just a few weeks past the anniversary of D-Day, in which Eisenhower oversaw the invasion of Europe, in World War II, by tens of thousands of American soldiers who, within a year, brought an end to the satanic German Nazi regime.

At the war’s conclusion, Eisenhower personally visited the Nazi death camps, to be a personal witness of what happened so those who wish to carry on the satanic work of the Nazis, like the Iranian ayatollah, could not deny it happened.

Eisenhower wrote: “The things I saw beggar description … I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.'”

Nine years later, June 14, 1954, Eisenhower signed the bill to add the words “Under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance. In Eisenhower’s words: “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim … the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty … Especially is this meaningful as we regard today’s world. Over the globe, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, deadened in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled by the prospect of atomic war … We are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.”

Almost 30 years later, another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, delivered his bold speech, warning about arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, which he called an “evil empire.” Reagan’s unwavering conviction about truth and falsehood, about good and evil, helped lead to its collapse.

Reagan cautioned, “We must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man … There is sin and evil in the world, and we are enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might … The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens … We must never go back. There is no room for racism, antisemitism or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.”

Bravo Trump for bravely doing what needed to be done in Iran. Your principles and courage carry our nation to a great new chapter, for us and the world, as America shines the light of a free nation under God.

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Star Parker is founder of the Center for

Urban Renewal and Education.