alt Hacker Newsit's actually weaker than before, and these who left are the kind that power hungry with no class or protocols of the leadership(that died), bunch of power hungry, blood thirsty mid level leaders who understand that they cannot allow the regime to change, at all cost, they even forced the son of the previous leader to take the reign (which in reality just a public face). they are actually more brutal and the chances of change from within through the people of iran is even smaller than before by multiple orders of magnitude.
now, why the regime didn't collapse? 2 things, 1. mesh network so they don't need to have a central command 2. they know they will be executed if they lose the grip on power.
it's actually weaker but more brutal now than ever, against their own people and against the outsider threats. like a cornered rats with no escape so they decided a fight to death.
<< 1. mesh network so they don't need to have a central command 2. they know they will be executed if they lose the grip on power. << more brutal now than ever,
So... they now have distributed command and are more willing to employ force. Note that all of that was known before the attack so the attack on Iran was a spectacular gamble, which failed. Worse, it undermined strategic interests of US.
Does that actually strike as weaker? It does not sound that way to me.
edit: Oh, somehow I forgot: Iran did not actually carry out some of their bigger threats ( internet cables and so on ). So, yeah, Iran may be weaker in terms of -- hmm, whats the proper phrase here -- conventional war units, but it now has outsized leverage compared to what it had before the attack AND, which it makes it worse even from pure propaganda perspective, a moral claim for self-defense.
Yeah, so much weaker.