Free Republic

Iran International news site revealed last week that Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, gets over $500,000 monthly from the Iranian regime to back its interests. Berri, 88, has been the continuous presiding Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament since 1992, and leading the Amal Movement, since its formation in the 1970s. He is a dominant Lebanese political figure, closely allied with Hizbullah, wielding significant influence over the nation's domestic and foreign policies. The Iranian regime's financial support is a calculated, long-term strategy to guarantee Berri steers Lebanon's domestic and foreign policies to serve the regime and Hizbullah. Political cover...

In history, authoritarian systems usually fall twice: first psychologically, when fear breaks; then politically, when the men with guns hesitate. Iran’s recent shocks look less like a single crisis than a classic collapse sequence unfolding at speed. The decisive moment in a regime’s collapse is often not the formal end, but the tipping point before it: the moment when the state’s aura of inevitability breaks. Borders may still be guarded, television may still broadcast, officials may still issue decrees. But something more important has changed. The system no longer functions with confidence. That pattern runs through modern history. Regimes die...