The Iranian people, long fed up with the country’s incompetent Islamist leaders, would dearly love regime change – but their aspirations have been repeatedly stifled by the ayatollahs’ iron grip on power. Only candidates with the personal approval of the Supreme Leader are allowed to run in the country’s rigged elections.
By Con COUGHLIN
There is a clear air of desperation in the warning issued by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Israel will face “severe punishment” in retaliation for the devastating attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, one of the Islamic Republic’s main objectives has been to become a Regional military superpower, capable of confronting and destroying its arch-enemy – Israel.
To this end, the ayatollahs have invested hundreds of billions of dollars to build a vast military arsenal, establishing a network of Islamist terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, with the aim of striking Israel and its allies.
As part of this drive to establish Regional hegemony, Iran has also invested heavily in developing nuclear capabilities. Although the regime has consistently denied that it is working to build nuclear weapons, there is a general belief in Western intelligence circles that much of Iran’s work, such as uranium enrichment, has a single goal – building nuclear warheads. However, despite the vast resources invested in the ayatollahs’ quest to achieve superpower status, almost all of the main pillars of this project have now collapsed.
The terrorist network – known in Tehran as the “axis of resistance” – has been significantly weakened since the October 7 attacks carried out by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists. Hamas itself has been destroyed by Israel’s furious military response, while Hezbollah, its close ally in southern Lebanon, has suffered a similar fate.
Other Iranian proxies, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen, have suffered major setbacks in their terrorist activities as a result of a series of devastating airstrikes by the US, supported by British warplanes.
Meanwhile, the internal weakness of the Iranian military has been exposed after Israel’s devastating attack last year, which managed to neutralize Iran’s much-vaunted air defenses. Iran’s attempt to retaliate with its first direct military attack on Israel in April last year – launching a combination of 300 drones and ballistic missiles – resulted in a complete failure, as almost all of the missiles were intercepted before they reached their targets. Israel’s latest attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which has caused serious damage to key facilities and eliminated key figures in Iran’s military and nuclear operations, is another humiliating blow to the ayatollahs – something that could ultimately spell the end of their despotic regime.
The Iranian military’s impotence was exposed again by its recent response to Israeli aggression, when around a hundred drones launched from Tehran reportedly failed to hit targets in Israel.
While Supreme Leader Khamenei continues to deny the catastrophe engulfing the Iranian regime, responding to Israeli attacks with the usual rhetoric of revenge, the regime knows full well that its very survival is at stake.
It is not just the damage that Tehran has suffered that shows this is a regime on its knees. The staggering sums invested in Iran’s military and terrorist infrastructure have come at the expense of ordinary citizens, many of whom are barely making ends meet. Due to the regime’s neglect of the country’s domestic needs, inflation currently runs at almost 40 percent, while government interest rates are at a punishing 24 percent. As a result, youth unemployment is around 20 percent.
The Iranian people, long fed up with the country’s incompetent Islamist leaders, would dearly love regime change – but their aspirations have been repeatedly stifled by the ayatollahs’ iron grip on power. Only candidates with the Supreme Leader’s personal approval are allowed to run in the country’s rigged elections. And when, as is increasingly the case, discontent manifests itself in nationwide protests, regime loyalists brutally crack down on opponents. It’s no coincidence that the number of executions in Iran this year is at an all-time high, with most of the victims convicted on trumped-up political charges.
Under these circumstances, there is a real possibility that Israel’s devastating attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities—with Israeli officials warning that there will be more—will result in the final blow to the ayatollahs’ regime. We could soon witness the collapse of a regime that is already openly despised by the vast majority of the Iranian people. (Telegraph)