Iran International
New lows once unthinkable in Iran—from assassinations of senior officials to the gutting of air defenses—have already been plumbed, yet Tehran’s rulers remain impervious to these new realities, inviting the prospect of an even harsher reckoning.
The first decisive break came with the 2019 assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the commander who embodied Iran’s regional network of armed allies and whose elimination was once considered beyond the realm of possibility.
For years, Soleimani symbolized Iran’s ability to project influence across the Middle East. Western policymakers and Israeli officials acknowledged his central role in destabilizing the region, but the notion of his actually being killed was long dismissed as outlandish.
Memoirs and statements from American and Israeli officials confirm he was repeatedly in their crosshairs until January 2020, when President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike on his convoy in Baghdad.
The attack, initially conceived as a joint mission with Israel before it withdrew at the last moment, shattered the regime’s myth of its own invincibility.
Arms broken
Soleimani’s death not only removed Iran’s most visible strategist but also disrupted the command structure of its allied armed groups—damage that remains unrepaired.
If Soleimani’s killing marked the first taboo broken, the next was direct military action on Iranian soil.
For decades, the idea of such strikes lingered at the margins of debate. It was occasionally invoked as a deterrent but rarely treated as feasible.
That barrier has now fallen.
Israeli and American precision airstrikes and even temporary control of Iranian airspace have made operations inside Iran a lived reality.
The bombing of sites deep within the country shows that thresholds once thought inviolable have already been crossed.
Head in the sand
In today’s climate, where the targeting of senior officials has become normalized and attacks on Iranian territory draw limited diplomatic shock, Tehran continues to pursue demands increasingly out of step with global realities.
The Islamic Republic’s insistence on uranium enrichment and nuclear advances, after years of secrecy and deception, has lost its leverage.
None of the old deterrents carry weight: not threats to close strategic straits, not promises of “harsh revenge,” not missile parades or military drills.
What once projected strength now reads as ritual.
By denying the scale of these shifts and clinging to exhausted strategies, Iran’s leaders only accelerate the erosion of their position.
What was once taboo—strikes on leaders, attacks on Iranian territory—is now well-trod precedent, and Tehran’s refusal to confront these realities may only hasten its own undoing.
