Thanks to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has spent almost four decades on a path to war with Israel, which he calls a “cancer” in the region that must be annihilated. Without a change of regime by the people of Iran, for the people of Iran, there can be no long-term stability and prosperity there and in the region.
STANFORD – When a madman throws a stone down a well, according to an ancient Iranian aphorism, ten wise men and women are needed to remove it. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s currently secluded supreme leader, was that madman, and now many people in Iran and around the world are trying to salvage the well.\
Thanks to Khamenei, Iran has spent almost four decades on a path to war with Israel, which he calls a “cancer” in the region that must be annihilated. At the same time, the regime managed to stave off a showdown unwanted by Iran’s people and unwarranted by Iran’s national interest. Iran’s rulers could rely on bluff and bluster, proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Assad regime in Syria, many Israelis’ reluctance to risk full-scale war, and its ability to use its nuclear program to wring concessions from Western powers.
The regime had plenty of warning signs about its unprecedented weakness at home and isolation in the region. There was Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Israel’s brutal but efficient destruction of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, economic collapse – evident in sharp currency depreciation, a truckers strike, and widespread gas and electricity shortages – and a rising tide of women’s civil disobedience over forced veiling.
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