Mojtaba's First Statement

Mojtaba Khamenei’s first statement turned out not to be a leader’s speech, but a text read aloud on television.

A blood-soaked, vengeful text, brutal in the extreme, leaving almost no room for doubt:
it is hard to see a real victory in any scenario that does not end with the fall of the radical religious dictatorship in Iran.

Any other outcome would not even be a return to the status quo that existed before the war began.
It would be far worse than that.

Israel has received a bitter enemy, perhaps the most extreme one imaginable:
highly motivated, destructive, and consumed by hatred to the very end.
And he now stands at the head of a huge country, with enormous resources and an ideology in which the destruction of Israel and its people is not merely a goal, but a reason for existence.

And this follows not only from the regime’s motives, but also from personal ones.
Mojtaba Khamenei has already lost his father and his wife.
According to some reports, he has also lost his mother and other close relatives.
Loss like that, against the backdrop of the regime’s heavy defeats, leaves deep marks on a person’s psyche.

After something like this, war against Israel is no longer merely ideology, and no longer merely politics.
It becomes a personal purpose. Almost a reason to go on living.

And Israel must understand that as clearly as possible.
Any result that does not lead to a change in Iran’s leadership and a change in Iran’s direction from within will be a grave defeat for Israel.
And a defeat like that will cost us very dearly in the future.