Ever since the Tehran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Khamenei's regional influence has been
weakening as
Israel has pounded Iran's proxies - from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. And Iran's close ally, Syria's autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has spent almost four decades as Shi'ite Iran's supreme leader building a regional power to rival the Sunni states across the Gulf and implacably hostile to the U.S. and Israel - while crushing repeated unrest at home.
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After the surprise Israeli attack on Friday morning, Iran has carried out retaliatory missile strikes on Israeli cities, focusing on the most populated areas between Tel Aviv and the port of Haifa.
It is disingenuous to claim there is 'no looming nuclear-weapons threat from Iran'
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Both sides have targeted each other’s oil and gas facilities, increasing the threat of environmental disaster, and explosions were reported on Monday near oil refineries in southern Tehran.

Earlier, in a
joint phone call the French German and British foreign ministers urged Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, not to escalate the conflict by attacking the US or other regional players.
US president denies he was leaving the summit to pursue a ceasefire, promising something ‘much bigger’
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Netanyahu did not start this war. Israel was the victim of a brutal terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists stormed southern Israel, brutally raping and slaughtering 1,200 people, mostly innocent civilians, and took over 250 hostages.
Israel was then attacked by Hezbollah and the Houthis, which are also Iranian proxies. And last year, Tehran turned the long-simmering cold war between the two countries into a hot one when it launched
a direct assault against Israel for the first time in history.
President Donald Trump on Monday urged everyone to immediately evacuate Tehran, and reiterated that Iran should have signed a nuclear deal with the United States.
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….& less than a week later, here we are…
Trump has
emphasized finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict, touting his self-professed ability to broker peace, but Iran and Israel have so far shrugged off international calls for deescalation as both sides launched new attacks early Monday.
Iran has vowed to retaliate against the U.S., too, while Trump has
warned: “If we are attacked in any way, shape, or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before.”
Another
sticking point in the talks has been Iran's missile programme (purely for civilian purposes, etc…). Ballistic missiles form an
important part of Iran's arsenal, but that’s not relevant to the nuclear programme, honestly honest, etc…
Reports suggest the U.S. may have played a greater role than has officially been admitted.
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi
said Iran has “solid evidence” that the U.S. provided support for Israel’s attacks. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a
statement that the attacks “could not have been carried out without coordination with and approval of the United States,” adding that the U.S. will be “held responsible for the dangerous consequences of Israel’s adventurism.”
If nuclear negotiations fail and conflict arises with the United States, Iran will strike American bases in the region, Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said on Wednesday, days ahead of a planned “sixth” round of Iran-U.S. nuclear talks.
The Middle Eastern allies that the Iranian regime has nurtured and backed — Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Bashar Assad in Syria — serve as warnings of Khamenei's own potential fate.
Israel's targeted strikes have killed key generals and top nuclear scientists, in addition to dozens of reported civilian casualties.
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