Iran’s devastating defeat at the hands of Israel has not led the Islamist regime to any substantial revision of its priorities. While the country continues to languish in economic and ecological distress, the radical regime remains focused on rebuilding its nuclear program and sponsoring terrorist activities against Israel. Even what can only be called “acts of God” has not turned Iran from this singular purpose.

On Sunday, Iran’s deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh defied the Western adversaries, insisting to CNN that “this country is not a country that you can bomb and then think that you are going to ruin everything.” He argued that Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program is intact, as we are speaking” because it was “very much based on our indigenous knowledge, very much spread across our country, which is a huge country — 90 million people,” and “we are going to be protecting that.”

In June, the Israeli Air Force launched a 12-day assault on Iran, disabling its air defenses, assassinating its nuclear scientists, and pulverizing its nuclear enrichment sites. The U.S. then administered the coup de grace by dropping enormous, penetrating bombs to eliminate Iran’s enrichment centrifuges, hidden deep within underground bunkers. Iran quickly signed a ceasefire with Israel as it tried to sort through the rubble.

The stakes are low for Iran to boast about its nuclear program now that the Gaza ceasefire makes another Israeli air assault even more remote. It’s likely true that Iran has personnel familiar with at least part of its nuclear program — too many for Israel to eliminate them all. But the more important point is that the airstrikes “ruined many of our infrastructure, machineries” and “buildings,” Khatibzadeh admitted.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragshi made the same admission this weekend, saying that “There is no enrichment right now because our facilities — our enrichment facilities — have been attacked.” The causal link in this sentence suggests that “attacked” is really a euphemism for “crippled” or “destroyed.”

The most obvious admission of Iran’s losses this past June came from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who promised earlier this month that the regime would “rebuild and with greater strength.” One can only rebuild what has been torn down.

The truth is, Iran has not attempted to rebuild three bombed-out nuclear sites struck by the U.S. and Israel this summer. According to an October assessment by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, “Satellite imagery of each of the three facilities reveals virtually zero activity or attempts to rehabilitate these sites. … Based on these images, it is clear that the U.S. strikes effectively halted uranium enrichment and uranium processing at these critical sites.”

This assessment certainly puts egg on the faces of those mainstream media outlets like NPR who spent the last week of June trying to argue that it was “possible” that the American bombing operation “just didn’t work.” Just last week, NPR finally admitted that, “for all practical purposes, maybe the Fordo facility was completely and totally obliterated” — just in time to pivot to a new narrative.

If Iran is not trying to rebuild their enrichment sites, how can they claim to rebuild their nuclear program? According to CSIS, the regime is building new centrifuge bunkers. Satellite imagery shows increased construction activity at Pickaxe Mountain, just one mile south of the Natanz site. In other words, so complete was the destruction of Iran’s old nuclear sites that the regime decided to abandon the sites and begin elsewhere, drilling brand new holes through bedrock.

Considering the ignoble end of Iran’s last nuclear enrichment sites, their determination to invest in new enrichment bunkers shows an extreme level of commitment. Iran does not need to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear power; the 60%-enriched uranium it has been creating is only useful to be further enhanced to weapons-grade uranium.

The Iranian regime is not only committed to enriching uranium, but also to terrorism. Iran has funneled approximately $1 billion to Hamas and another $1 billion to Hezbollah so far this year, funding without which both terrorist groups may have had to give up on their war against Israel long ago.

Unlike the U.S. government, the Iranian regime doesn’t have a cool billion just lying around, ready to be squandered on preposterous pork. Tightened international sanctions have constricted the regime’s cashflow and squeezed its economy. Still, funding terrorism and uranium enrichment are regime priorities.

It now appears that the Iranian regime is more committed to funding violence against Israel than to sustaining its own capital city. Severe drought in Tehran has forced Iran’s capital city, with a population the size of the whole nation of Israel, to ration water for months. Five reservoirs that provide drinking water to the city have hit “critical” levels. “We have only 8 percent water in our reservoir — and most of it is unusable and considered ‘dead water,’” said the manager of the Karaj Dam. He added that there has been a 92% decrease in rain since last year.

With no rainfall in the forecast, even rationing will no longer work. In a televised address Thursday, President Pezeshkian admitted, “The truth is, we have no choice left — relocating the capital is now a necessity.”

There are always choices, of course. Instead of investing into terrorism, the Iranian regime could have invested into aqueducts to better distribute water around the country. Instead of investing into missiles, it could have followed Israel’s example and invested in desalinization technology and plants to purify seawater. But those choices were made long ago. Instead of providing for its own survival, Iran’s Islamist regime sought Israel’s destruction, and now it has secured neither.

If the Iranian regime relocates the government, it would likely choose a remote site on the southern coast. However, this move could cost tens billions of dollars that Iran simply doesn’t have — at least not while it continues to fund terrorism.

It would have been wise for the Iranian regime to rethink its priorities before now. A 92% decrease in rainwater — easiest to explain as an act of God (1 Kings 17:1; Matthew 5:45) — should provoke Iranians to wonder whether, in fact, their policies of violence and terrorism do not please God.

Instead, Pezeshkian has opted for a naturalistic explanation: climate change. “Protecting the environment is not a game,” he declared. “Ignoring it is signing our own destruction.”

But even this prognosis exposes the folly of Iranian policy. If Iran opens itself up to destruction by neglecting domestic priorities like caring for the economy, the environment, and the capital metropolis, then why does it insist on spending so much money to “rebuild” its nuclear enrichment capabilities and foreign terrorist proxies?