Burning the Assets

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (b. 1939), the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran is in an apocalyptic mood and is betting on the support of Allah. By ditching the JCPOA does he ensure that Israel will destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons program. By ordering Hezbollah to launch massive barrages of 150 000 rockets and missiles against Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities does he ensure a joint IDF-SDF strategic operation that will unseat the Syrian and Lebanese regimes, establish an Aramean Christian state, annex Median Jewish (Alawite and Druze) regions of Syria and Lebanon to Israel and let the the new PYD-ruled Syria annex the remainder of Lebanon. Khamenei will lose the entire Western flank of his empire. By ditching the JCPOA does he risk America imposing a no-fly zone over Iran that will permanently curtail the Iranian nuclear weapons program and which will ignite armed rebellions with US air support in Iran’s ethnic periphery that will make Khamenei lose control over half of Iran’s population and most of Iran’s oil resources. All this because Khamenei is paranoid about the intentions of the Americans whom he suspects of lurid conspiracies.