The assassination of the Supreme Leader was the most violent earthquake that could have hit Iran. Some believe it is even more devastating than the strike on the nuclear facilities or the major regional setbacks, like losing Syria after decades of dominance or losing the ability to station forces on the Lebanese side of the Israeli border in southern Lebanon. Iran can survive regional losses, but it will not be easy for it to see an army dare to assassinate its Supreme Leader.
Experience has shown that the Iranian political system is ultimately built around the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Jurist. All the keys are in the drawers of his office. All authorities reside there. Every major decision must receive his blessing.
The Supreme Leader is always there; presidents come and go. The Leader bids them farewell and welcomes their successor, again and again. Journalists cover the president’s demeanor, his powers, and his relations with reformists and hardliners, only to discover in the end that he is the Supreme Leader’s chief of staff. In managing relations with enemies and friends, the Supreme Leader has the first and last word. All major decisions, from confrontation to negotiation to repressing protest movements or feigning flexibility, must bear his signature. In politics, security, the economy, and regional and international relations, governments take instructions from him alone, especially as he combines revolutionary legitimacy, selection by Khomeini, and popular legitimacy.
Eliminating him amounts to a massive earthquake. Finding a replacement is not easy, though it is not impossible. It would require specific qualifications, an aura, and the ability to balance individuals and institutions, generals and clerics, as well as to manage the various components of society and silence streets drenching in blood, only to repeat this cycle every few years. The Middle East is a garden of horrors. Journalists forget everything but assassinations. Maybe this is because high-profile assassinations place countries before a difficult turning point, especially when solid institutions are absent. After experiences imposed by the profession, I can say there is no truth to the claim that assassinations change nothing. Since the journalist’s memory in this thorny part of the world is burdened with assassinations, comparisons impose themselves despite differences in context.
It is no exaggeration to say, for example, that the assassination of Ali Khamenei is no more dangerous than the assassination of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, though the agile Yemeni politician’s death changed the circumstances in Yemen, which had once claimed to have been happy by some. It is also more dangerous than the killing of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who spent more than four decades in the office turning the country into a feast of permanent chaos and deep fear. The assassination of the Leader is more dangerous than the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose blood was spilled along a regional fault line. It is more dangerous than watching the noose tighten around Saddam Hussein’s neck after a long and eventful reign during which he pursued the nuclear dream, the dream of crossing international borders, and defied the “Great Satan.” Incidentally, Saddam once rejected a proposal to assassinate Khomeini while he was in Baghdad, on the grounds that Iraq does not assassinate its guests. After the Iranian revolution triumphed, he attempted to assassinate Khomeini, but instead succeeded in reaching Ali Khamenei, injuring his hand.
The assassination of Ali Khamenei is more dangerous than all that preceded it. Not only because of Iran’s size and weight in the region, but also because the perpetrator is Israel, with reports suggesting that US intelligence offered it a “golden opportunity.”
Several questions come to mind. Did Khamenei misjudge the “Great Satan” as Saddam Hussein had before him? Did he also miscalculate the threat posed by Israel despite the experience of the Twelve-Day War? Did Khamenei consider any attack on him a red line no one would dare cross? Did he overlook the fact that the man in the White House had, years ago, taken a decision his predecessors would not, assassinating General Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad airport? Did he forget that Donald Trump does not hesitate to violate red lines?
Did Khamenei fail to realize that Israel had been founded on the principle of crossing red lines? That Netanyahu, after the “Sinwar Flood,” is far more dangerous than he had been before? Without intending to, Sinwar changed the rules of the game in the Middle East, and Netanyahu breached every red line. Before “the Flood,” Netanyahu had not taken the decision to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, nor had he decided to assassinate Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran or ordered the killing of Iranian officers in Syria, stripping Bashar al-Assad of his allies and compelling him to flee.
Iran is behaving like a country hit by an earthquake. It launched its missiles and projectiles at states that had opposed the use of their airspace to attack Iran. We saw Iranian shrapnel scatter onto civilian targets in the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, even over the territory of the mediator, Oman, under the pretext of targeting American bases. The harassment also extended to Saudi Arabia, which swiftly condemned the blatant assaults and affirmed its support for the Arab states that had been targeted.
The attempt to set the region ablaze, threaten energy corridors, close straits, and fan the flames seemed suggests that Iran has been rattled by the magnitude of the quake. The region faces the tremors of an exceptional crisis and a profound impasse. Iran cannot surrender, but it cannot win. Trump cannot return without tangible results. Netanyahu does not intend to end the war before breaking the back of a regime he accuses of standing behind “the Flood” and that he sees as an “existential threat.”
The war began with Khamenei being pushed into the river of assassinations. Netanyahu’s government implemented a “decapitation” policy. This operation is more difficult than Venezuela and far more dangerous. The assassination of Khamenei will create more peril than anything that had come before.
