What the collapse of Iran’s regime would mean

WHEN PROTESTERS took to the bazaars and streets of Iran, the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, met them with bullets. After two weeks of chants of “death to the dictator”, militiamen allied with the Revolutionary Guards and toting automatic rifles rode in on swarms of motorbikes. With snipers, they shot their fellow citizens, aiming at their faces and genitals. Morgues are overflowing. Bodies in bags are stacked on bloodied pavements. Several thousand may be dead. Thousands of the wounded have been arrested, some dragged from hospital beds to prison cells and an uncertain fate.