More unpleasant surprises for West from war on Iran

LESS than four days on, Donald Trump's war on Iran has sparked global repercussions.

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Demonstrators in Tehran protest at American and Israeli strikes on their country

The US president and his Israeli allies don't seem to have planned for more than the devastating decapitation strike on Ayatollah Khamenei and his key advisers. They assumed that, with their supreme leader and top commanders dead, even the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards would implode and give up.

Instead, often acting on their own initiative (even according to Iran's foreign minister), the Iranian armed forces have been firing ballistic missiles against their hated enemy Israel, but also swarms of drones — which Iran mass-produces — at nearby Gulf states.

Worse still, Iran's remaining proxy militias in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen's Houthis are joining the fight as Iran appeals to its fellow Shiite Muslims to rally to its cause. In addition to targeting Israeli and American bases, we've seen in Bahrain disorder in the streets between the Sunni Muslim monarch's police and his mainly Shiite subjects.

Iran's regime might face street protests, too. But there is a split between Trump, who wants a postwar Iran to stay one country, and Israel. Israel has been calling on Iran's many minorities — who make up about 40% of the population — to seize their chance to break away from the regime's rule.