On Friday, the Islamic Republic held its parliamentary elections, which delivered a resounding victory to the so-called “hardliners.” Or at least so it seems to the casual observer. In reality, two-thirds of those eligible to vote declined to do so, knowing full well that the outcomes were foreordained. Tamar Eilam Gindin explains:

[A] tiny council known as the Guardian Council of the Constitution, [whose] twelve members are directly or indirectly appointed by the supreme leader, [must] approve any laws passed by the parliament, and filters the candidates running in every election. Its members also learn from their own mistakes.

For example, after the reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi didn’t win in 2009 and his supporters and regime opponents took to the streets, in 2013 the Guardian Council filtered the candidate list to exclude all “problematic” contenders. [This time], Iranians seeking change simply had no one for whom to vote.

The current election race, which follows on the heels of two gigantic protest waves—in November over gas prices, and in January over the regime’s attempt to cover up its role in the downing of a Ukrainian passenger airline—was largely characterized by immense resistance to the false pretense of democracy. There were photos and video footage of election banners being ripped up and torched, windows at various campaign headquarters being shattered, and people using “I don’t vote” [as an anti-regime] slogan. . . . The minuscule voter-turnout rate points to the people’s severe and persistent crisis of faith in the regime.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].