The bell tolls for the ayatollahs

Published June 20, 2025 5:45am ET



In the opening pages of his 1940 novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway recites the English writer John Donne’s famous poem from centuries past. “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Both works warn about the dangers of hubris. On Friday the 13th, the bell began to toll for one of the most hubristic enterprises of the modern era: the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime undone by its own overarching ambitions.

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