Sohrab Ahmari

I was a skeptic of going to war with Iran before it happened, but even for me, the degree to which they've actually held it together –

is surprising.

It reminds us that Iran is not Iraq.

It's much bigger.

It is not an artificial state whose borders were basically drawn by European imperialists 100 years ago just by kind of randomly going, okay, here's Iraq, here's Lebanon.

That's not the case with Iran.

It's a resilient, systemic, civilizational state.

And so even though the supreme leader was killed early on in the attack, they have in place

Various people who are prepared for each role.

There's someone else waiting to take command.

They have been firing on all cylinders, really have set the Gulf on fire.

Gone a long ways was really closing the Straits of Hormuz.

They are raining fire on Israel.

And by the way, the images from Israel of the civilians...

The images from Israel really just break my heart as well, because, you know, it's just, you know, I grew up during the Iran-Iraq war.

The latter years of Iran-Iraq war, I only have vague memories of this.

But that kind of city to city missile warfare is really, really awful because you can't predict where it comes from, you know, and what the consequences are, even just the sound effects.

Yeah, I think the real terror threats right now are to U.S.

facilities in the region because Khamenei, like him or not, was not just the head of state of Iran.

He was also the spiritual leader of many millions of Shiites, many of whom outside the country respect and revered him more than those inside the country, to be honest.