The Iranian theocratic regime is teetering at the edge of the precipice

Ayatollah must now regret decision to train, finance and direct Hamas terrorists of 7 October attack

Today, the mullahs’ theocratic regime teeters on the edge of the precipice. Their so-called ‘axis of resistance’ that included Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has collapsed. Israel and now America have joined the forensic assault on the regime’s nuclear sites. Dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders and key nuclear scientists have been eliminated. The 86-year-old fundamentalist Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must truly regret his decision to train, finance and direct the horrific 7th October 2023 terrorist Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Middle East conflict that has raged ever since and has now engulfed Iran itself.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pictured on July 5 2024 in Tehran | Getty Images

Khamenei’s years of sponsoring international terrorism and warmongering, while trying to persuade the West that he was only enriching uranium for peaceful, civilian energy purposes, has spectacularly imploded. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has noted that Iran now has a stockpile of around 900 lbs of uranium enriched to near weapons’ grade - 60 per cent purity. With the mullahs chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, the theocratic regime’s development of nuclear bombs and ballistic missile delivery systems was never going to be tolerated.

As western leaders call for a de-escalation of tensions and warn Iran that direct retaliation against American military compounds in the Middle East would be a grave mistake, Khamenei and his puppet president Masoud Pezeshkian, continue to issue belligerent threats. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly invited the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the mullahs’ regime. Netanyahu may be pushing at an open door. There are reports that the IRGC has not been paid for weeks and many in its lower ranks are now contemplating the value of risking their lives in conflict with Israel and America, on behalf of a collapsing regime.

The mullahs, enmeshed in corruption and incompetence, have squandered the nation’s wealth on funding terror and proxy militias. The Iranian economy now lies in ruins, strangled by mismanagement and the burden of sanctions. Billions have been wasted on the clandestine nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programme that is now a smouldering ruin. Ninety million impoverished Iranians have lost their fear of the mullahs and their savagery. The exponential rise of MEK Resistance Units across the nation has demonstrated the courage of the opposition, daily spraying anti-regime graffiti on the walls of public buildings, firebombing IRGC and Basij compounds, displaying banners of National Council of Resistance (NCRI) leaders like Maryam Rajavi, and mounting cyberattacks on regime TV and radio communications.

Western appeasers must end their wearisome calls for diplomacy and negotiation with the world’s most evil regime. It is time to show the Iranian people that we back their right to overthrow the mullahs and restore peace and prosperity to Iran and the Middle East.

Struan Stevenson was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.