Con Coughlin: Why Iran’s regime is closer than ever to losing its grip on power

Ayatollahs have wasted much in their failed pursuit of nuclear weapons

An Iranian protester shouts anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans while standing next to the portraits of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former leader Ruhollah Khomeini during a protest in Tehran. Photo: Getty

Con Coughlin
©Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd

The graphic satellite images of the deep missile craters marking the remains of Iran’s once much-vaunted nuclear programme represent the final nail in the coffin of Tehran’s ambitions of becoming a regional superpower.

For more than four decades since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the driving motivation behind the ayatollahs’ obsessive investment in their nuclear programme has been their desire to establish Iran’s Islamic Republic as the undisputed powerhouse of the Middle East.