Two weeks ago something unprecedented happened on Iranian state TV — a reporter blurted out “death to Khamenei” when he was live on air. The journalist was covering state-organized rallies marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution that ushered in Iran’s theocratic regime and he’d meant to say “death to America.”
His slip of the tongue cost him his job, but also crystallized the extent to which former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Saturday — had become a figure of antipathy after almost 40 years of rigid rule over a country of more than 90 million people. Track US Iran war live updates here.
The 86-year-old cleric was killed after decades of trading threats and, more recently, missiles with Israel and the US. Satellite images showed the secure compound in downtown Tehran where his residence and offices had been, reduced to a gray mass. Four members of his family including his daughter and a grandchild, were also killed. Track Dubai-Abu Dhabi news live updates here.
Khamenei’s demise has potentially seismic consequences for the Middle East and beyond. While it marks the end of an era for Iranians — the majority have only known one leader — for now, as the fighting continues in the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Republic as a system of rule continues to function.
“Iran’s conventional military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remain united, in control of the security apparatus and determined to resist until they exhaust the US and Israel — or go down fighting,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Social media videos over the weekend showed Iranians in some parts of the country celebrating Khamenei’s death. But there’s so far no sign of any efforts to “take over” the government, as US President Donald Trump has urged Iranians to do.
Security in towns and cities across the country has been tightened with reports from residents in the capital Tehran of large numbers of volunteer paramilitaries and armed police in the streets.
“Despite Trump’s call on the Iranian people to use this moment to rise up and topple the regime, ordinary Iranians are likely to prioritize safety and shelter rather than storming the streets,” Geranmayeh added.
There is no organized opposition in Iran. The constitution doesn’t allow for political factions that question or refuse to recognize the Islamic Republic and the concept of a religious supreme leader as immutable.
Reformists who have challenged this have often been imprisoned, including in the immediate aftermath of January’s protests during which security forces killed more than 7,000 people, according to the latest estimates by human rights groups. This lack of any tolerance for grassroots political movements that don’t have constitutional approval means Iranians living abroad have tended to dominate the sphere of alternative politics. The majority of them call for the complete removal of the theocratic system.
Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran and son of the deposed Shah of Iran, emerged in recent protests as a masthead for many and helped drive thousands to take to the streets in early January. He is a polarizing figure in Iran and is yet to secure any backing from Trump.
The country’s remaining top political and security officials appear to be making decisions having spent the months since Israel and the US’s air strikes in June preparing for the possibility of war and Khamenei’s potential assassination.
“His death is bound to have significant consequences for the life of the Islamic Republic, not necessarily for its survival, but for the way the Islamic Republic conducts itself domestically as well as internationally,” Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar said.
“In the short term, Iran will be governed according to the constitution. It will be governed by a council made up of the heads of the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive,” Kamrava said adding that the Assembly of Experts — which will select Khamenei’s successor — is expected to meet as normal. Speculation as to who that successor might be often centers on Khamenei’s second-eldest son Mojtaba who is thought to be still alive.
‘The very fact that his death was announced so quickly,” added Kamrava, “implies one of two things: either his death was hard to hide or a successor has already been selected behind the scenes and leadership succession is already on the way.”
Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, a close adviser to Khamenei for years, has gained prominence since the June attacks after the country’s decision-making and national-security institutions were reorganized. He’s made public statements about what happens next in both the conflict and the succession process in Tehran.
A council comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, the head of the judiciary and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, will take on the leader’s duties for now and was expected to meet later on Sunday, Larijani has said.
But with Khamenei dead, it’s likely that the IRGC — the powerful wing of Iran’s armed forces originally designed to protect the regime and its supreme leader — will assume much more power potentially at the expense of the next Supreme Leader.
The organization has gained significant political and economic influence in the country over the past two decades. Its top surviving veterans, including parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaee, are now key figures in Iran’s response to the strikes, alongside Pezeshkian and Larijani.
Survival Mode
For almost half a century, the Islamic Republic, which emerged after the 1979 revolution in Iran that ousted the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, one of the US’s strongest and most important allies in the region, has acted as an implacable foe to Israel and a constant challenge to Washington and its interests.
Khamenei helmed the state for all but the first 10 years of the Islamic Republic’s existence and during that time his decisions have been driven by a belief that the revolutionary ideals that energized him as a clerical activist in the 1960s and 1970s, should shape all areas of policy. He emphasized Islamic values above everything else, often promoting the idea of Islamic nationalism above, or instead of, Iranian nationalism or ideologies that didn’t prioritize Shia Islam.
This approach was recently loosened when a sudden surge of patriotism in response to Israel’s June strikes briefly strengthened the regime. It’s unlikely Iran’s leaders can draw on that capital now after the brutal crackdown in January.
Although Khamenei’s death may have been welcomed by many people in Tehran, Tel Aviv and Washington, it’s far from clear that Iranians have any appetite to follow Trump’s wishes to take over the state at a time when the country’s vast armed forces and paramilitaries are actively at war.
His death has also divided international opinion, particularly other powerful leaders who are isolated by the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader Trump admires and seeks to appease, said on Sunday that Khamenei “will be remembered as an outstanding statesman.” China condemned the assassination as “unacceptable.”
The vacancy at the top of Iran’s leadership structure also raises questions about whether the country’s nuclear policy will change. A report by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency published before Saturday’s attack concluded that “regular activity” had been observed at key Iranian nuclear sites that Trump had bombed last June and later claimed had been “obliterated”.
Khamenei issued a religious edict, or fatwa, against weaponizing its nuclear program two decades ago. Along with being a signatory to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which also prohibits Iran from building warheads, Tehran’s diplomats argued, unsuccessfully, that the two pledges together represented an ironclad guarantee that the country would not develop nuclear weapons.
With Khamenei’s demise, voices that have sought greater flexibility in Iran’s pursuit of deterrence may gain new strength. In April 2025, Larijani, for instance, said Iran could change its nuclear doctrine if forced to defend itself.
The Islamic Republic has already, for several decades, withstood one of the toughest economic sanctions regimes in history, the longest land war of the 20th century against Iraq, and nearly 50 years of isolation from the West.
Khamenei, by his own admission, wasn’t the most qualified person to take on the post of Valayat-e Faqih — or guardianship of the Islamic jurist — a leadership doctrine in Shia Islam that says highly qualified religious scholars should rule over a state.
“Based on the constitution, I am not qualified for the job, and from a religious point of view, many of you will not accept my words as those of a leader,” he said when he was selected to succeed the Islamic Republic’s first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in June 1989. “What sort of leadership will this be?” He was trying to project a sense of pious humility in the face of criticism of his religious credentials.
But the leadership question is one many Iranians have asked for nearly four decades. It now has a renewed urgency.
Countless times, Khamenei refused to listen to calls from Iran’s urban middle classes to make space for reform. On the few occasions that the country’s economy grew, when its biggest trade partner was the European Union, its elected government was in the hands of reformists or moderates, a political faction that Khamenei marginalized and effectively rendered obsolete.
“Despite the very vocal criticisms directed at Khamenei, and calls by reformist and activist figures for him to step down, the political clan and more importantly security apparatus has continued to back him,” Geranmayeh said. “In part, the more existential the threats have become, the more the political elite have glued together to save the entire ship from sinking.”
A Polarized Nation
Protests over alleged fraud in the 2009 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged the cleric’s hold on society. He responded by harshly suppressing the so-called Green Movement, an experience that showed he could rule with brutality if he needed to. It was a major turning point for the country. “Death to the dictator” or “death to Khamenei” became popular slogans in protests and uprisings, and the security forces accordingly became ever more violent in their response.
Iran became an increasingly polarized country with a middle class whose livelihoods were severely damaged by Khamenei’s isolationist policies and a type of economic management that used cronyism and corruption as a means to cope with worsening US sanctions.
Across the Middle East, Khamenei oversaw the growth of Iran’s influence, taking advantage of the US’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003, which allowed the Islamic Republic to rebuild strong religious and cultural ties with a Shia-majority population.
A policy of funding armed militias allowed Iran to maintain influence on Iraqi politics. This helped Khamenei establish a sphere of influence that ran from the eastern Mediterranean, where Iran had helped create Hezbollah in Lebanon, supported Hamas in Gaza, and backed Syria’s former President Bashar al-Assad, right up to Iran’s borders.
To an extent, it was the near-collapse of this strategy, after Israel carried out heavy bombardments of Hezbollah and all-but-destroyed the Gaza Strip in its war on Hamas following the group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the country, that has accelerated Khamenei’s downfall.
The June attacks then exposed just how vulnerable Iran was from the air and how much military dominance Israel has over the region.
In normal circumstances, Khamenei’s funeral — which has yet to be announced — would be a massive state event. When his predecessor Khomeini died his laying to rest was attended by millions. But there’s no precedent for such an event at a time of war even if authorities might want to use it as a show of strength for domestic and international audiences.
At home Khamenei is still likely to be remembered for his obstinance, repressive policies and fixation with challenging the West.
“Khamenei’s legacy will be one of brutality,” said Dina Esfandiary, geo-economics analyst at Bloomberg Economics, “people will remember his iron fist in crushing dissent.”
–With assistance from Peter Martin and Jonathan Tirone.
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