Khamenei Set Iran’s Direction for Decades. Now the Public He Suppressed Has Hope.

On Saturday night, the first evening of the second American-Israeli military campaign against Iran in less than a year, an Israeli official made a dramatic announcement to reporters — that the Israeli Air Force had assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 86-year-old supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.

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“The supreme leader avoided naming a successor,” said Jonathan Ruhe, fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, “but that may be moot anyway, if Israel’s opening strikes killed his son Mojtaba, Ali Larijani, and a short list of others who were believed to be unofficially in the running.” (Larijani was not killed and, as of Sunday, Israel has not suggested that Mojtaba was either.)

Some observers believe the most likely successor would be from the IRGC.

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“Being able to take out the supreme leader and other top regime officials builds on the psychological effects of Israel’s covert and decapitation strikes last June,” said Ruhe. “Those attacks showed everyone, in Iran and abroad, just how feeble and hollow the regime ultimately was.”

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Originally published in the Times of Israel.