The most serious attack on the history of Iran’s nuclear program has put the theocratic regime in existential crisis. The Israeli attack not only hit crucial military and scientific infrastructure, but also revealed the serious faults in the intelligence network that has maintained Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in power for nearly four decades.

Tehran launched dozens of ballistic missiles against Tel Aviv on Friday, after waves of Israeli air raids across Iran the day before, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities and killed several of its top commanders and leading scientists.

Israel’s attacks are the most serious blow to a confrontation that broke out between the two long -term enemies on October 7, 2023. Iran, so far, has not managed to respond in the same way. Most of the rockets that launched against Tel Aviv were intercepted or caused little damage.

Now, Hameni is confronted with hard dilemmas and no good choice, the Wall Street Journal notes. The exhausting conflict with Israel has weakened the Iranian Armed Forces. A further response may prove inadequate to prevent future attacks and lead to even more severe Israeli retaliation.

Attacks on shipping targets on Red Sea or in American interests And staff will probably provoke an American response, something that Hamenee has historically been trying to avoid. Recession to pressures and achieving a nuclear deal with the US that will seriously limit Iran’s potential for enrichment will be regarded by its hard -core supporters, who are increasingly based as an unacceptable capitulation.

For decades, Hameni has been the architect of Iran’s military and political expansion in the Middle East, using the revolution guards and the allied Shiite militia network. He established his power inside by building an absolute dedication between those who supported him and a powerful monitoring system to stifle those who did not support him.

Now, the eighty -year -old leader who has ruled Iran since 1989 will probably spend the autumn of his life fighting, not to expand his power, but trying to rescue the Islamic Republic that has helped to turn into regional power.

“If he is honest with himself, he will admit that he has lost. Everything he has built collapses in front of his eyes, “said Aphon Bone, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Moderrei, California. “The ship he ruled has been overwhelmed.”

Hameni displayed Iran’s military power, but until recently it had not been tested. This changed with the attack of Hamas – Iran’s War – against Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then, while Israel has waged a war in Gaza, it has killed almost twelve highest Iranian military commanders, including the Chief of the Chief of Staff. ballistic rockets. Israel has also decimated Iran’s main regional allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, while a third, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was overthrown in December.

After building a military presence in the area, which included heavily armed militia fighters on the border with Israel, Hameni and his senior advisers seriously depressed Israel’s willingness to face him with the use of violence, said Hamidrezi.

Even when tensions increased so much that the United States withdrew earlier this week diplomatic staff from Iraq, the Iranian Security Service leadership was apparently not transferred to safe facilities.

“Most were targeted in their homes. This shows a level of over -confidence that is really incomprehensible in such a situation, “Azizi said.

The way Israel has managed to penetrate the Iranian intelligence services and seemly targeting their top executives at will is a problem for the supreme leader. First, it makes Hameni himself vulnerable to targeting.

If the goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is indeed to eliminate the part of the nuclear program that can be used for equipment and overthrow the regime, then this will require much more,” Rasmos Christian Elling, Associate Professor Iranian, said. “And maybe that’s what we’ll see in the coming weeks,” he added.

Secondly, the power of Khamenei is partly based on the fact that it appears as a guarantor of national security. Despite the disadvantage it is facing inside, the Islamic Republic has offered relative security to its citizens for decades by the wars and terrorist attacks that have ruled neighboring countries.

Ever since Hamenee took power, shortly after the eight -year war with Iraq – one of the fiercest wars of the last century – Iran has kept hostile forces away from its territory. In the last decade, while the Islamic State has killed tens of thousands in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, the extremist organization carried out four major attacks in Iran, killing about 150 people – lower than those who killed France at the same time.

The security structure that is now collapsing around Hameni had been established in the early days of the Islamic Republic. The revolutionaries who overthrew the US -backed in 1979, swore to protect the new theocratic state from a kind of uprising similar to what they had just accomplished. In this regard, they created the body of the Guards of the Islamic Revolution and an omnipresent Intelligence Service. Israel has revealed both as increasingly vulnerable.

Between 2010 and 2012, Tehran accused Israel of killing four nuclear scientists inside Iran. In 2020, Mohsen Fazade, who was considered the father of the Iranian nuclear weapons program in the 1990s and 2000s, was killed by a remote machinery in a bold attack attributed to Israel.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed several leading Iranian commanders in Syria. He killed Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniya to a hostel in Tehran, placing a bomb in his room. And on Friday, it aimed at the same time many of the most prominent Iranian military commanders.

Part of the attack on air defense systems and rocket launchers were carried out with explosive drones and other guided weapons, which were smuggled to Iran by Israeli Mosad intelligence agents, according to Israeli security officials.

However, it is unlikely for Iranian citizens to take advantage of this juncture to provoke a revolt, mainly because their leaders will do whatever they need to maintain their power, the bone said.

“Although Iran has lost its ability to wage a serious war against its opponents, it can still wage a serious war against its own citizens,” he said. “I think it’s really a very dangerous time for the people of Iran.”

Iran is in a clearly weaker position outside its borders. His long -term weapon of deterrence – his regional militias – is almost neutralized. The two rocket attacks against Israel over the last year were largely unsuccessful.

However, Hameni’s hard -core supporters, who are based, will demand a relentless response to what they consider to be an ongoing Israeli campaign, SWP’s Azizi said. They are unlikely to support the immediate continuation of the US nuclear negotiations, which were scheduled to be repeated for a sixth round on Sunday.

“This is a choice between the continuation of this war with full intensity or tradition,” he said. “It is already clear to those within the system that, whether and how they respond, Israel will continue.”