Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has built a system that survives only through repression. Yet now, a man who has never been willing to retreat confronts a dilemma from which there is no clean exit: continued internal war against his own people, or an external war that exposes his regime’s fragility.
CHICAGO – Three weeks into Iran’s latest wave of protests, the country has now spent more than ten days cut off from the outside world. Not only has internet access been shut down nationwide, but even basic landline and mobile phone connections are disabled. Nonetheless, the few images that have emerged – transmitted sporadically through Starlink connections – depict what appears to be a widespread military-style crackdown against civilians, with blood-soaked bodies lining the streets and mothers wailing in grief.
