Iran’s so-called “Supreme Leader” posted on X on Friday morning that the “Zionist enemy is being punished now” as one missile landed in the city of Be’er Sheva, damaging a building and injuring seven people lightly.
The missile had apparently been intended to be part of a much larger barrage, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed ballistic missiles that had been primed for launch in Iran before they could be fired at Israel.
Though it was the second missile in as many days to hit the city, where Jews and Arabs both live, it was a sign of a vastly diminished Iranian attack capability. The size and frequency of missile barrages has fallen steadily.
Khamenei’s bluster seemed disconnected from the reality of conflict, as the IDF struck many targets in Iran overnight, including nuclear sites, missile production facilities, and key symbols of the Iranian regime.
The message from the top underscored the hard-line approach that Iran has taken toward negotiations, refusing to compromise with President Donald Trump even as Israeli attacks have destroyed Iran’s military.
Trump gave the regime a two-week reprieve on Thursday, saying that he would give diplomacy a chance before deciding whether the U.S. would join the attack on Iran and the underground Fordow nuclear site.
That simply gave the Israelis more time to destroy the regime, with total air supremacy over Iranian skies. Israeli defense minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to “destabilize” the Iranian regime in its attacks.
Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that regime change lies with the “Iranian people alone,” he clearly intends to make it easier for Iranians to rise up against their oppressive government.
In that regard, Khamenei’s bluster — from a bunker in a location that Trump has said is known to the U.S. — implied that the regime is out of touch with reality, and may be on an irreversible path to self-destruction.
Even Trump’s offer — which would, in theory, allow Khamenei to save his regime at the price of its nuclear program — seems to have been ignored, hinting that for the Iranian regime, there may be no turning back.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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