The graphic satellite images of the deep missile craters marking the remains of Iran’s once much-vaunted nuclear programme represent the final nail in the coffin of Tehran’s ambitions of becoming a regional superpower.
For more than four decades since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the driving motivation behind the ayatollahs’ obsessive investment in their nuclear programme has been their desire to establish Iran’s Islamic Republic as the undisputed powerhouse of the Middle East.
One of the founding principles of the revolutionary constitution established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a commitment that his regime would export his uncompromising Islamic agenda throughout the Middle East and beyond.
To this end, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has worked tirelessly to establish its terrorist network throughout the region, starting with Lebanon in the 1980s and gradually expanding its operations as far afield as Iraq, Yemen and Sudan.
At the same time – on Khomeini’s direct orders – the regime began work on its nuclear programme in the 1980s, developing Tehran’s technical know-how to the extent that, on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003, the CIA published a damning finding that Iran was working on a clandestine programme to develop nuclear warheads. The programme was conveniently put into cold storage after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq by US-led coalition forces.
Despite this setback, the nuclear programme has remained the jewel in the crown of the regime’s attempts to establish itself as a regional superpower, with the ayatollahs quite content to see themselves demonised as a pariah on the global stage in their single-minded pursuit of nuclear dominance.
Their dream now lies in tatters. The devastation wrought by American bombers on the regime’s prized facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, with significant areas of the compounds reduced to rubble, represent a bitter blow to the Islamic regime’s standing, one from which it will struggle to recover.
The loss of the Natanz and Fordow facilities will be felt particularly hard by the ayatollahs. Used to enrich uranium to weapons grade, both facilities were secretly constructed in fortified underground bunkers, specifically to protect them from the type of military attack that has just been undertaken by the Trump administration.
The graphic satellite images of the deep missile craters marking the remains of Iran’s once much-vaunted nuclear programme represent the final nail in the coffin of Tehran’s ambitions of becoming a regional superpower.
For more than four decades since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the driving motivation behind the ayatollahs’ obsessive investment in their nuclear programme has been their desire to establish Iran’s Islamic Republic as the undisputed powerhouse of the Middle East.
One of the founding principles of the revolutionary constitution established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a commitment that his regime would export his uncompromising Islamic agenda throughout the Middle East and beyond.
To this end, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has worked tirelessly to establish its terrorist network throughout the region, starting with Lebanon in the 1980s and gradually expanding its operations as far afield as Iraq, Yemen and Sudan.
At the same time – on Khomeini’s direct orders – the regime began work on its nuclear programme in the 1980s, developing Tehran’s technical know-how to the extent that, on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003, the CIA published a damning finding that Iran was working on a clandestine programme to develop nuclear warheads. The programme was conveniently put into cold storage after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq by US-led coalition forces.
Despite this setback, the nuclear programme has remained the jewel in the crown of the regime’s attempts to establish itself as a regional superpower, with the ayatollahs quite content to see themselves demonised as a pariah on the global stage in their single-minded pursuit of nuclear dominance.
Their dream now lies in tatters. The devastation wrought by American bombers on the regime’s prized facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, with significant areas of the compounds reduced to rubble, represent a bitter blow to the Islamic regime’s standing, one from which it will struggle to recover.
The loss of the Natanz and Fordow facilities will be felt particularly hard by the ayatollahs. Used to enrich uranium to weapons grade, both facilities were secretly constructed in fortified underground bunkers, specifically to protect them from the type of military attack that has just been undertaken by the Trump administration.