The Highest Paradise
Israel kills Ali Khamenei
The Western Hemisphere awoke to news Saturday that Israeli-led airstrikes against the Iranian regime, in conjunction and coordination with the United States Armed Forces, were underway.
Uncharacteristically for Israelis to strike on a Saturday—the Jewish sabbath—and for Donald Trump to not strike overnight, the coalition forces began their operations during the day, at around noon. Reports say the operation was actually intended for a nocturnal time of the day, sometime later this upcoming week, but that the Israelis learned of a high-level consultation with the Islamic government’s “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei and over 40 of his senior-most advisors. Jerusalem consulted Washington and got the go-ahead.
All who attended, or were anywhere near that high-level meeting, are dead.
At first, news coverage of the operation was spurious. Iranian exile news channels, like the popular Tousi TV on YouTube, showed videos from inside Iran of people dancing singing and celebrating the strikes. In the Arabist and Islamist press, even as reports of the potential assassination of Khamenei echoed worldwide, news channels like Al Jazeera focused on the civilian casualties caused by the U.S.-Israeli strikes. The latter of these forces, joining with the ‘America First’ isolationist wing of Trump’s Republican Party, lamented the potential violations to the Congressional War Powers Act.
Centrist Democrats in Congress joined the ‘authorization’ chorus on the isolationist-right, while leftist Democrats like Austin-area representative Greg Casar (D-35) outright condemned the U.S. strikes against Tehran, describing the operation as a “senseless” regime-change war and forecasting American casualties.
The Socialist Workers Party, in contrast to every supposedly socialist group in America, opposes any U.S. intervention in the Mideast while supporting Israel’s fight against the mullahs. “Far from quelling resistance by working people and students,” The Militant newspaper wrote in its current issue:
“The massacre of more than 7,000 protesters in Iran last month and the arrest of more than 50,000 has only deepened opposition to the bourgeois clerical regime.”
Washington, it continued, “has put in place its largest military buildup of ships and warplanes in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to press Tehran to give in to U.S. demands. … U.S. military strikes would be a blow to Iranian working people organizing to defend their rights against the regime.”
“Any major social and political transformation in Iran,” the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company Workers Union said Feb. 23, must include the rights of “all ethnicities and nationalities.”
The union said it will soon publish a program to defend “working-class families and the oppressed people of the country” and to “protest against internal repression and killings, and against war and militarism.”
Both Netanyahu and Trump sang from the same sheet in the early hours, each of them calling on the Iranian people to rise up and take the reins of their country. Trump recalled the Iranian attacks in Beirut in 1982, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 1993 which he said Tehran likely knew about in advance, and the more recent rendition and killing of American hostages captured 7 October 2023.
Remaining Iranian officials claimed the reported death of Khamenei was a fabrication intended to demoralize their security forces. As the hours drove on, however, Israeli officials told media outlets they believed Khamenei and others had been killed. Trump tacitly concurred in an exclusive interview with NBC. Later in the evening, Iranian state television confirmed the “martyrdom.”
Reading a statement from the country’s “Supreme National Security Council,” they said:
“In the name of God: The noble soul of Imam Khamenei—leader of the great nation of Iran—the freedom-seekers of the world and the Islamic nations has joined the highest paradise and reached his long-cherished wish of martyrdom, in the holy month of Ramadan.
“Today Iran, the Islamic nations and freedom-seekers in the world are grieving the evil attacks by the criminal Americans and wicked Zionists. Both, the blood-thirsty enemies who are intentionally oppressive, should know that the awakened hearts of this world have found their way.
“And although these martyrdoms are costly for Iran and the Islamic world it makes them more resistant and determined. Undoubtedly the martyrdom of a personality of such great stature will begin a great uprising in the fight against the world’s oppressors.”
Early statements by remaining Iranian officials repeated tried-and-true refrains, in agreement with isolationist Republicans, that the U.S. empire was being duped and misled by the Jewish state. The regime’s communications attempted to drive a wedge with Trump’s party base. Figures like Marjorie Taylor Green blamed Trump for “betraying his base” and figures like former Trump National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, joined with Democrats’ war-powers critique.
The remnants of the Iranian regime immediately began attacking Gulf countries like Jordan, Kuwait, Iraqi-Kurdistan and Bahrain, earning the condemnation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who ultimately decided to join-in on defensive operations. The regime shot ballistic missiles into residential areas, hitting high-rise residential buildings in the neighboring countries, including Israel. Shocking videos of startled bystanders in those countries began flooding social media channels. Civilians were reported dead almost immediately.
Not long after the Saudi condemnation came the United Kingdom’s, in the person of its Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. The Labor Party Prime Minister recalled his government’s previous condemnations of Iran’s repressive regime, also shouting-down their murderous response against other countries. The regime, one should note, also targeted U.S. bases in many of those countries alongside civilians. The U.K., like the U.S. one should also note, has its own imperialist history in Iran. Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members reside in London.
The response inside Israel was destructive. The government, in preparation, mobilized its population into bunkers and banned all public gatherings. Videos of Israelis dancing and celebrating in bunkers also came to light, as news of the operations inside Iran spread worldwide. On-the-ground reporters, nevertheless, showed hundreds of ballistic missiles coming down on Tel Aviv. Several have been reported killed inside Israel. One woman was hit in a residential area.
Tehran’s allies came to their aid politically in the initial moments. The regime’s allies in Moscow unsurprisingly condemned the U.S. attacks, using the language of international law and the United Nations charter. An emergency UN Security Council meeting was convened within hours of the strikes.
In Caracas, the new interim government of Delcy Rodriguez took a nuanced position, condemning Washington and Jerusalem for their assaults while also condemning Iran’s murderous retaliatory strikes across the region. This statement was later taken down by Venezuelan state television message channels:
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela condemns and deeply regrets that, in a context in which diplomatic efforts and negotiations were underway, the military option was chosen through attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran, triggering in recent hours a dangerous and unpredictable escalation of events, including the undue and condemnable military reprisals carried out by Iran against targets located in various countries of the region,” the later-deleted statement in part read.
Political support from non-government actors for the mullah regime around the world came, in due course. In Skardy, Pakistan, a large group of mostly male protestors condemned the strikes against the government. The mob eventually stormed the U.S. consulate in Karachi, killing 6 so far.
In the U.S. groups affiliated with the ANSWER coalition protested against “war with Iran”. Protests in support of attacks against the regime also occurred. In Iran, the regime organized compulsory grieving ceremonies.
Remnants of the regime and their supporters worldwide are pointing to the government’s “Constitutional process,” in determining their next leader. A council including the President and two other senior figures in the country are to serve as the interim decision-makers. (After the publishing of this piece, the interim council appointed “Ayatollah” Alireza Arafi as “Interim Supreme Leader.”)
Ali Khamenei
Khamenei became supreme leader in 1989, after the Islamic Republic’s founder—Ruhollah Khomeini—passed away. The second ayatollah was an acolyte of Khomeini, taking part in the Islamist-wing of the resistance movement to the dynasty of Shah Reza Pahlavi, overthrown in the late 70s by a popular uprising.
Throughout the nineties and early two-thousands, Khamenei led his regime’s deception operations, in their covert efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. He also made all final decisions regarding the training and arming of Shia militias from Iraq to Lebanon, as well as ordering the assassinations of Kurdish and Persian dissidents in the diaspora, from Buenos Aires to Berlin. Khamenei’s regime provided training and funding to Hamas, in the years leading up to their genocide-on-wheels that was the October 7 slaughter in southern Israel, lending the same material- and technical-support to Shiite forces in Lebanon and Syria.
The Ongoing Situation
Military experts report the joint-operation struck over 15 cities and hundreds of targets across the vast country. While it is uncertain which strikes were done by the Israelis, Americans—or both—we know the critical strike against Khamenei was executed by Israel.
Fighting continues, as regional governments announce emergency declarations and as Washington warns the regime’s remnants against further escalation. The long-oppressed Iranian people, despite any intervention by any foreign power, will have the final say.
