(JNS) In a stunning turn of events that has already reshaped the Middle East, the United States and Israel launched a decisive joint strike against the Iranian regime on Saturday, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other senior figures in the opening strikes.

Iran responded with waves of ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli cities and Gulf targets, while its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah opened a second front with rocket and drone attacks on Israel’s north. The regime’s retaliatory fury failed to mask its vulnerability: across Tehran and other cities, ordinary Iranians poured into the streets in open celebration, a sight unthinkable only months earlier.

Yet much of the Western left, along with figures ranging from Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif to former US Vice President Kamala Harris and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres chose to condemn the operation as a threat to world peace rather than acknowledge the removal of a chief sponsor of regional terror.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called it a “declaration of war against Muslims,”...

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