With his top advisers and generals dead, the ayatollah is reportedly hiding in northeastern Tehran in an underground bunker.

After Israeli strikes killed at least 20 senior military commanders and several key political figures, including a top nuclear negotiator, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is isolated. He is fighting for his regime’s survival.

After the remarkable success of Israel’s attacks this past week, talk has gone beyond simply degrading Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It has turned into fierce calls for regime change.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is openly advocating for this outcome, though he says it is not Israel’s primary goal. He is urging the Iranian people to throw off the oppression of the dictatorship and seize the moment for freedom.

After a year and a half of punishment, Khamenei’s revolutionary regime appears to be tottering. His “axis of resistance” is demolished: Hamas in ruins, Hezbollah defanged, Syria defected. Now his nuclear program is absorbing serious blows. Israel’s attack has been potent, Iran’s retaliation feeble.

This past weekend, Israel reportedly had a strategic window to assassinate Khamenei. His life was spared, several United States sources say, by a veto from President Donald Trump.

Exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi has called on military and security forces to join a national uprising. He issued a video to all Iranians, saying, “Come to the streets. End this regime. … The regime’s repressive apparatus is falling apart. Khamenei has hidden himself underground like a frightened mouse. He has lost control. … The future is bright, and together, we will pass through this sharp curve in history.”

Is the octogenarian’s supreme leadership about to end? Is Iran about to return to the era of the shah—its pre-revolution, pro-Western glory days?

Don’t count on it.

Biblical prophecy says much about Iran’s role in the end time. The Trumpet’s editor in chief has been pointing to these prophecies for over three decades. Gerald Flurry wrote the booklet The King of the South back in 1996—before Iran had any real power beyond the region. Daniel 11:40-43 and companion prophecies indicate that Iran will be a “king,” leading a confederation of nations, with power enough to “push” violently at a European empire and spark a catastrophic war.

For years the Islamic Republic has increasingly showed itself able to fill this prophesied role. The Islamo-fascist regime of Khamenei—with its fanatical ambition to spread its radicalism, its recruitment of proxies, its projection of power into other nations, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, its pushy belligerence—fits these prophetic descriptions ideally.

Even Iran’s loss of influence in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria was expected. For years, Mr. Flurry had foretold that each of them would be stripped from Iran’s orbit based on those prophecies. Daniel 11 shows that Iran’s alliances would shift to include Egypt, Libya and “Ethiopia” (likely comprising the nations lining the Red Sea).

However, a crippled Iran would be far less likely to carry out the work of “the king of the south.” A nation too weak to command respect from neighbors seeking to affiliate with a “strong horse” would not fulfill the prophecy. A regime lacking the weapons to push and provoke other nations into war would not. The return of a pre-revolutionary, pro-Western Iran certainly would not.

How, then, will a radical Iran emerge from its current tribulation with power such as this prophecy describes? We watch closely.

As impressive as Israel’s accomplishments over this first week of warfare have been, as much as one may want to see the demise of this violent, oppressive regime, somehow Iran is going to preserve its considerable power—as well as its extremist temperament and aspirations.

Israel continues to land blows, but it can only do so much without America’s help. Netanyahu is willing to act alone, but only to a point. He doesn’t want to be seen as acting too independently. President Trump vetoing the ayatollah’s assassination is a notable example. Were Israel given free rein, it seems Khamenei would be finished.

It may still happen—but to this point, Trump’s desire to keep America at a distance and to avoid escalating the conflict are offering the ayatollah a lifeline.

Why? Hard to say: Trump’s messaging changes by the day, sometimes even oftener than that. He seems to consider unpredictability his greatest political asset.

Whatever its cause, the daylight between Israel and America is significant. If the two were united, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, even regime change, would be likelier.

America withholding its B-2 heavy bombers and “bunker buster” bombs to target Iran’s underground Fordow enrichment site is an example. Analyst Peter Wildeford called this the “Fordow Paradox”: “The U.S. possesses the military capability to destroy Fordow but lacks the political will, while Israel has the will but not the capability.” Yet apparently, Trump is uncertain the bombs would work.

It is certainly true that if the U.S. gets involved and, somehow, Iran retains its nuclear capability, it would be more urgent to use them. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

And that is to say nothing of the other weapons Iran still has in its arsenal. It could close the choke points in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. It could mobilize the Shiite militias in Iraq to attack U.S. bases, drawing America into another insurgency war. It still has foreign terrorist cells—many throughout the West—that it could activate. It may have a dirty bomb, or several bombs, in undisclosed locations.

All these options would raise the wrath of the world. This will happen at some point—this is precisely what Daniel’s prophecy foretells.

At this point, it seems as though only Trump would hold Israel back.

If the 86-year-old Khamenei does lose power, his successor will find a way to finish what he started.

It is unclear exactly how this will play out. Often events take turns very different from what we expect. But biblical prophecy is clear on the outcome. As you view events, however circuitous, remember what Gerald Flurry has been saying about Iran—and watch them come to pass.