Tehran in Meltdown as Israel Decapitates Hamas and Hezbollah

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  By Struan Stevenson Conflagration engulfs the Middle East, with the Israel-Hamas war having gone on for more than a year now, and many Israeli hostages are still being held in deplorable conditions by Hamas terrorists. In Northern Israel, constant missile and rocket attacks by Hezbollah led to the mass evacuation of more than 70,000 Israelis from their homes in 2024 and to the inevitable military retaliation by the Israel Defense Forces, as they crossed the border into Southern Lebanon. Israeli missiles are raining down on key Hezbollah targets in Beirut. The assassination of Hezbollah’s terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, a seismic event, shattered his close friend and ally Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader and Hezbollah’s main sponsor. Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Saffieddine, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut within hours of being nominated for the Hezbollah leadership role and before the funeral of his predecessor had even taken place. Es...

After Strike on Israel, Iranian Regime’s Media Crackdown Hints at Strategic Defeat

 Written by Farid Mahoutchi

Three-minute read

For decades, the Iranian regime has strategized a mechanism for survival: initiating foreign conflicts to avoid confrontation with a domestic enemy, namely the people of Iran and their organized Resistance movement. However, it appears that its recent regional venture, which took a new hike on October 7, has largely brought this strategy to a close with failure. Despite attempts at damage control, Tehran found itself compelled on April 13 to escalate tensions significantly by launching an unprecedented attack, involving hundreds of missiles and drones aimed at Israel.



Less than 24 hours after this attack, thousands of Iranians on social media deemed the regime’s show of strength a complete military failure, and on April 14, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline: “Iran’s Attack Is a Show of Weakness.”

However, the regime is grappling with efforts to depict this operation as a “great victory” through narrative manipulation and is determined to legally target anyone offering an opposing interpretation and expose its complete weakness. In the last 48 hours, numerous state-affiliated media channels and critics of this undertaking have been subjected to legal persecution.

The regime’s Attorney General declared, “After the successful missile attacks on the Zionist regime last night, anyone who disturbs the mental security of society will be dealt with decisively.”

The Tehran prosecutor’s office has accused Hossein Dehbashi, a state-affiliated media activist, of “disrupting societal mental security.”

Following the drone and missile attacks and with international news agencies reporting that 99% of them were intercepted, Dehbashi was among the ones who took to social media platform X to voice their disapproval. He posted several short texts, deeming the action ineffective. Dehbashi’s assessment read, “Last night’s attack was symbolic, insufficient, and unsuccessful, raising concerns about the country’s actual defensive capabilities.”

According to state media, the Tehran prosecutor’s office has also charged the newspaper Etemad and Abbas Abdi, a former intelligence interrogator turned journalist, with “disrupting societal mental security.”

In an article published hours before the regime’s missile attacks on Israel, Abdi had urged the regime to avoid any confrontation with Israel. He argued that “Hitting the Iranian consulate in Syria is much less significant militarily and strategically than the assassination of Fakhrizadeh under Tehran’s nose.”

Abdi also wrote, “Israeli attacks are not only considered military actions but their intelligence dimensions are much more important and dangerous. While Tehran’s actions are not direct and are carried out with the support of regional forces.”

On the other hand, Kayhan newspaper, which receives its editorial guidelines directly from the office of Ali Khamenei, the regime’s Supreme Leader, slammed the critics of the regime’s drone and missile attack on Israel. Additionally, it labeled commentators on the turbulent economic conditions within Iran as “parasites” and called for the regime’s intelligence apparatus to take action against them.

According to the official IRNA News Agency, a criminal case has been filed against the state-run Jahan-e Sanat newspaper and its reporter. They have been summoned to Tehran’s courthouse to provide explanations in order to “preserve societal mental security.”

On April 14, in a column titled “Harsh Revenge or Great Concession,” Jahan-e Sanat acknowledged that senior Revolutionary Guard commanders working as military contractors had been killed in Syria. It wrote that the regime’s senior officials’ promises of “harsh revenge” had led to economic turmoil.

Quoting a sitting MP, the paper had written that due to Western powers’ refusal to compromise on the regime’s demands concerning the Middle East conflict, “Tehran had exited the dispute and the tension-filled circumstances with utmost humiliation.”

Having adeptly steered his regime for more than three decades by instigating conflicts abroad, Khamenei’s recent crackdown on his tightly controlled media signals his faltering grip on the narrative within Iran. As a result, the significant decline in morale among both internal and proxy forces, whom Khamenei aimed to galvanize through Middle Eastern crises, will ultimately prove fatal for his own survival.

This article was first published by NCR-Iran

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