Tehran’s Ultimate Test

• The Islamic republic faces a crisis matched only by its war with Iraq in the 1980s, amid economic isolation, shattered alliances, a frail, 86-year-old leader and now a full-blown war with Israel.

• The Israeli strikes have crippled Iran’s military leadership, damaged its nuclear and energy infrastructure, derailed US nuclear talks and dramatically undermined the regime’s security narrative.

• Despite Israel hoping for regime change, however, such an outcome appears unlikely in a country deeply wary of foreign interference and a region scarred by externally driven upheaval.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s greatest test comes at what was already a time of huge precarity for a regime that he has been in charge for decades, amid deep economic isolation and a war that has decimated Iran’s regional allies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Almost overnight, Israel’s attacks wiped out Iran’s military leadership, hit nuclear sites, damaged energy infrastructure, derailed nuclear talks with Washington that held the promise of desperately needed sanctions relief and humiliated the country’s rulers, whose legitimacy is based partly on their ability to provide security. But the prospect of regime change, touted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the engineer of the current conflict, may be more elusive than he hopes — like his declared goal of fully destroying Iran’s nuclear program, which would require US intervention to destroy deeply buried enrichment sites like Fordow.