Exhausted Iran faces USSR-style reckoning, DC-based experts say

Iran's military and economic setbacks have deepened this year after it was worsted in a US-Israeli war and hit by mounting sanctions, two prominent experts told an Iran International panel, drawing parallels with the waning days of the Soviet Union. “I do think there are people inside of Tehran who say in their quiet moments, we're a fading regime,” said [UANI Senior Advisor] Norman Roule, a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency for over 30 years who once oversaw its Iran desk. “We’re not so far off from the Soviet Union in our final days, our leadership is not going to crawl into the grave when the Supreme Leader dies with him, and we need to survive,” he added. "How do we modulate these dials, and how do we play this?"