Are old-style record stores, like this one in Seattle, destined for dustbin. (Dustin and Jenae)
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One of the Saturday drone attacks arms factory in Isfahan, central Iran
Screenshot
The U.S. press reports that Israel was responsible for this attack, the first against Iran since Benjamin Netanyahu's return to office with a far-right coalition. According to the The New York Times, it was the Mossad, Israel's secret service, that carried out the operation.
Nevertheless, a key question remains: what exactly was the target? Was it related to arms supplies to Russia? Or the Iranian nuclear program? Both scenarios are possible.
Did the drone strike nuclear weapons' operations?
The West has condemned the supply of Iranian drones to Russia, which is used to target Ukrainian infrastructure. At the end of December, The New York Timesreported that the Biden administration was considering limiting Iran's ability to assist the Russian war effort.
The Iranian nuclear program is another explosive possibility.
But Israel, sensitive to its relations with Russia, has no reason to take such risks for a conflict in which the Jewish state has refused to get involved.
The Iranian nuclear program is the other explosive possibility. European and American efforts to revive the nuclear deal that was broken during Donald Trump's administration have failed. For months now, there have been no real negotiations, and Iran's centrifuges have been running at full speed, bringing Iran closer every day to its ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Israel is vehemently opposed to this program as it is to other Iranian weapon programs, such as missile production, which it believes is a direct threat to its security.
Tehran's domestic repression
Yet the disparate issues, ever more, blend into one. Iran is increasingly seen as a kind of besieged fortress, with a regime that has hardened ideologically as its legitimacy grows weaker.
The scale of the uprising led by Iranian women has seriously worried the leaders of the Islamic Republic: they have opted for repression, with hundreds of deaths that have reduced the number of demonstrations but not the popular discontent.
This internal hardening is also noticeable on the outside. And now, we see that the alternative is the risk of direct confrontation. The drones in Isfahan are arguably only a foretaste of what’s to come.
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