Smuggled from one safe house to the next, communicating with underlings via scraps of paper for fear of using a phone, and with his foremost regional commanders dead, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is perhaps pondering how his actions have brought Iran to this miserable juncture.

The Iranian supreme leader’s hapless spy chief Ismael Qaani has disappeared, prompting speculation that he may have been killed by Israel, or is under interrogation in Tehran over his culpability for security breaches.

Iran flooded the region with transnational paramilitary armies such as the Houthis in Yemen, Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon that were supposed to be cannon fodder in the exalted cause of regime preservation. But through such warmongering, the ayatollahs succeeded only in placing a large target on their own heads.

The “axis of resistance” was never primarily about attacking Israel: it was a pretext for subverting governing authorities in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, converting these nations into proxy frontline states against the full spectrum of regime enemies — including Arab countries and the West. Iran cynically wields these failed states like playing cards, dialing tensions up and down as proof of its supposed pre-eminence.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the ayatollahs were prisoners of their own rhetoric, having for so long trotted out the nonsensical narrative of “death to America” and “death to Israel,” while in practice spending the past year dodging and weaving in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid being caught up in full-blown regional war.

Tehran and Hezbollah’s constant missteps ultimately granted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the........

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