Extract from ABC News
Analysis
This residential building in Bahrain's capital, Manama, bears the scars of an Iranian drone attack. (Reuters: Hamad I Mohammed)
One of the most perplexing acts of apparent self-harm undertaken by the besieged regime in Iran since Saturday has been the decision to attack non-military targets in its neighbouring countries in the Gulf.
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, observed on Sunday that Iran's Gulf attacks had isolated the country, warning Tehran not to target its neighbours.
"The Iranian aggression against the Gulf states was a miscalculation and it isolated Iran at a critical juncture," Al Jazeera quoted him as saying.
"Your war is not with your neighbours.
"Return to reason, to your surroundings, and deal with your neighbours rationally and responsibly before the circle of isolation and escalation widens."
An Iranian drone left its mark on this building in Manama, Bahrain. (Reuters: Hamad I Mohammed)
The immediate focus of the Israel-US strikes on Iran on Saturday was on the risks it involved for those countries, the shift in Donald Trump's position away from his previous determination not to get bogged down in any campaign, and of course, its success.
For the first time, regime change became a central target of US policy, rather than just something Trump toyed with then appeared to back away from.
The early criticisms of the US and Israeli actions as illegal were overtaken by shock when it was revealed that they had succeeded in killing the Ayatollah, both because it seemed such a difficult thing to achieve and because so much of the US discussion had been about the nuclear program.
It was a very different attack to the one in June last year.
Last year, it was all Israel leading, and the US backing that up with the one decisive blow, smashing the nuclear bunkers in Iran.
This time round, the lead-up has been focused on the Americans because of the huge build-up of military assets in the Gulf in recent weeks.
But on Saturday, the lead was once again taken by Israel, reminding anyone who might have forgotten that it has been in a wrestle to the death with Tehran for regional dominance for decades.
A large plume of smoke rises after a strike targeting Tehran on Sunday. (AP: Vahid Salemi)
Some analysts question whether this was a deliberate move: that Israel announced the strikes before Trump emerged. It was notable Trump didn't mention Israel in the comments he made at Mar-a-Lago early on Saturday morning, local time.
The way the news emerged did lead to the perception it was Israel that was leading and directing this attack, something which has implications for both countries as time moves on.
The news of the Ayatollah's death brought many world leaders out in firmer support of the actions by Washington and Tel Aviv than had been seen in the immediate hours after the initial strikes.
The internationally illegal killing of a head of state is apparently OK when it is one as murderous to his own people as Khamenei.
But Iran's strategy of taking retribution on its neighbours — not just striking US bases — could tell us a lot more about where the weakened regime is headed.
(Keep in mind that many of these countries had been ardently urging the US and Israel not to attack Iran in recent weeks.)
Iran's strikes on targets like Dubai International Airport — one of the world's busiest, moving 18,000 flights and 80,000 people a day — is clearly designed to disrupt the region as much as possible, and for as long as possible.
In doing so, it highlights the regime's apparent power even as most analysts believe that power is waning under the effects of previous attacks both direct and on its proxies, like Hezbollah.
And of course, Iran's attacks on its neighbours still threaten to drag the whole region into conflict.
Maybe it speaks of a group in shock at the loss of the man who had dominated the country since 1989, and of other senior leaders killed from the defence forces and Revolutionary Guard, flailing to assert that they are still in control.
There was a supreme degree of confidence in Trump's assessments about the outcomes of the attack — notably his early assertion that Khamenei was dead.
It looked and felt for all the world like an assessment built on the extraordinary Israeli intelligence that we have repeatedly seen in operation in the last couple of years, targeting figures whose physical security seemed impregnable and in operations like the exploding pagers that so devastated Hezbollah's leadership.
That is why you must take very seriously his claim that there are cracks in the unity of the Iranian military, even though the regime's remaining leaders moved swiftly to put a new hierarchical structure in place.
However, analysts have warned that destroying Iran's stockpiles of ballistic missiles and taking out the country's leadership are not necessarily enough to spark the regime change from within that both Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are encouraging.
That really does require fissures, rather just cracks, in the facade.
Laura Tingle is the ABC's global affairs editor.
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