Iran's vulnerability lies in minds of its people

What is Iran's most significant vulnerability that the recent 12-day war with Israel has uncovered? The conflict led the Iranian authorities to report more than 600 deaths and nearly 4,800 injuries from Israeli strikes, while Iran's retaliatory bombings led to around 30 casualties in Israel.

- SAYEED AHMED

What is Iran's most significant vulnerability that the recent 12-day war with Israel has uncovered? The conflict led the Iranian authorities to report more than 600 deaths and nearly 4,800 injuries from Israeli strikes, while Iran's retaliatory bombings led to around 30 casualties in Israel. However, the gravest concern in this conflict is not the casualty figures or how destructive and advanced the weaponry both sides deployed were. It's the stories emerging about how deeply Israeli intelligence infiltrated the innermost circles of Tehran's security systems. The case of Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a French-born journalist who reportedly spent years infiltrating Iran's top circles, highlights this chilling vulnerability.

Perez-Shakdam infiltrated elite circles, gaining the trust of top regime loyalists, using her most effective weapon—charm—to befriend the wives of Iran's high-ranking government and military officials. Whether the allegations about her being a Mossad operative are true or not, her story highlights a key weakness in Iran's security system. Reports indicate that Mossad infiltrators smuggled precision-guided weapons and set up a drone base near Tehran, targeting air defenses and ballistic missile launchers, which crippled Iran's ability to mount a counterstrike. But how could Israel get this far?

Iran's greatest weakness isn't its aging military equipment or its isolated economy. It's the very nature of its authoritarian system. When a government rules through fear and oppression, it creates the conditions for its own downfall. Citizens become potential assets for foreign intelligence, not because they are traitors but because they yearn for the freedom their government denies them.