Except perhaps for the Gaza Strip, the Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country in the world governed by an explicitly Islamist regime. Yet it also has one of the world’s fastest-growing Christian populations—despite the risk of severe persecution for Muslims who abandon their religion. Daniel Pipes writes:

This trend results from the extreme form of Islam imposed by the theocratic regime. An Iranian church leader explained in 2019: “What if I told you Islam is dead? What if I told you the mosques are empty inside Iran? . . . What if I told you the best evangelist for Jesus was the Ayatollah Khomeini, [the founder of the Islamic Republic]?”

As a clandestine phenomenon, the practice of what are sometimes called Muslim-Background Believers (MBBs) lacks clergy and church buildings but instead consists of self-starting disciples and tiny house churches of four to five members each, with either hushed singing or none at all. Its lay leadership, in striking contrast to the mullahs who rule Iran, consists mainly of women.

In another contrast to the government, Iranian MBBs tend to be fervently pro-Israel. They are, explains a documentary, “bowing their knees to the Jewish messiah—with kindled affection toward the Jewish people.” A convert states, “we fall in love with Jews.” Converts have even expressed a hope to build a “resistance church” in Iran to counter the regime’s threats to Israel.

The growth of Iranian Christianity seems, paradoxically, to be a result of the general demoralization that has resulted from theocratic totalitarianism. Moreover, this development is a sign that the regime is losing its grip on the people. If so, Pipes concludes,

the consequences are enormous. The collapse of Khomeini’s regime would not only fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Middle East; it would also likely terminate the Islamist surge that Iranian revolutionaries forwarded in 1978-79, ending the malign historical cycle that largely began in Iran.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.