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.

After Iran’s second massive barrage of rockets last week, which failed to cause any significant damage to its targets in Israel, Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech — delivered in Arabic — spoke volumes about who his priority audiences are.

If the Gaza protagonists succeed in grudgingly inching toward a ceasefire, despite most of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conflict objectives remaining unmet, the question then would be: what next?

Over the past few days in France I have spoken to many people who profoundly fear for the future of Western democracy.

In belligerent, warmongering language, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last week threatened to attack the Mediterranean island of Cyprus — a European nation — if it opened its military bases to Israel.

On paper, Iran and Russia are crushed under a mountain of sanctions that grows daily. In reality, rogue states are running rings around enforcement efforts, prompting questions about whether Western leaders are serious about implementing their own policies.