How Iran Lost
A few years ago, the sudden, near-simultaneous killing of Bagheri, Salami, and a host of other senior leaders would have been unthinkable. Over three decades, the hard-liners who control Iran’s regime had built up what seemed like a formidable system of deterrence. They stockpiled ballistic missiles. They developed and advanced a nuclear enrichment program. Most important, they established a network of foreign proxies that could routinely harass Israeli and U.S. forces.