ERFAN FARD

Infiltrated via cyberspace, economic networks, data hacks and leaks, criminal middlemen, and powerful political figures, is this country going to continue letting its guard down?

Iran does not need to win a conventional war to endanger Americans. The FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Forces must ensure that Tehran’s shadow threat never becomes America’s next tragedy.

The ruling establishment in Iran is paralyzed. The regime does not fear the United States or Israel. Its nightmare is a nationwide uprising by the Iranian people against the current establishment.

Decapitating a military leadership can create disruption. But Iran’s latest appointments suggest the regime’s institutions - and the strategic thinking behind them - remain firmly in place.

With the American president’s plan to target the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure rather than the IRGC or nuclear sites, his principal objective has become dismantling its leadership

The selection of targets by the US signals a transition from a conventional military campaign to a broader strategic effort aimed at disrupting Iran’s ability to function.

By warning that any new Iranian attack would trigger an even more devastating response, and by describing the regime as a “cancer” that must be removed, Trump signaled something far more significant.

Today, the regime in Tehran has transformed every state-controlled media outlet into an instrument of propaganda, attempting to manufacture an image of national unity and political stability

The remnants of the Iranian regime continue to imagine themselves as a regional power, yet the spider-web structure of the Shi’ite Islamist caliphate established in Tehran is steadily collapsing.

The current conflict — the first war of the post-Khamenei era — is more than another confrontation with Tehran. It is a sign that the regional order born in 1979 is beginning to unravel.