The Death of Khamenei

 

 

On February 28–March 1, 2026, multiple international sources reported that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989—was killed in joint U.S.–Israeli air strikes on Tehran. Iranian state media confirmed the death, after first denying it, announcing a period of mourning and describing Khamenei’s death as martyrdom. The government also announced 40 days of formal mourning following the death. This dramatic event is a historic and deeply polarizing moment in world affairs—one that can occasion feelings that are neither purely celebratory nor purely sorrowful, but mixed and generative of internal conflict.

Firstly, I am not sorry to see Khamenei go. He was the brutal dictator and successor of a regime I have considered to be illegitimate since 1979, never mind a mass murderer. In 2022, during the height of the #Woman_Life_Freedom uprising, I even issued a fatwa against him (and the whole regime he represented) without naming him.

 

 

But I have a serious problem with his death being effected by a joint U.S. and Israeli military operation against Iran. The killing of Khamenei by U.S.–Israeli strikes risks transforming him into a martyr—not only for his immediate followers, but for a broader Shiʿi constituency across the region. If, in the aftermath, Reza Pahlavi were elevated to power under visible U.S. or Israeli sponsorship, the legitimacy deficit for any post–Islamic Republic government would eclipse even the stain left by the 1953 CIA–MI6 coup against Mossadegh (d. 1968). Such an arrangement would embed structural instability into a future Iranian state, potentially exceeding the long-term fragility associated with the first Pahlavi regime. Khamenei’s reckoning, if it were to come, would have carried greater domestic legitimacy had it arisen from the Iranian people themselves rather than from foreign military force. The geopolitical reverberations will also matter: China and Russia will interpret this episode not only as an Iranian development but as a signal of U.S. willingness to pursue regime-shaping force against entrenched adversaries.

For many observers, Khamenei’s death may initially feel like the fall of a powerful symbol of repression and conflict. Over more than three decades in power, Khamenei played a central role in shaping Iran’s theocratic system, consolidating authority in the clerical state, and overseeing a security apparatus that often resorted to force against all dissent. For those who have suffered under or opposed systems of repression— within Iran or through the impacts of its foreign policy—the news might evoke relief and consternation at the same time, or at least recognition that a long-standing locus of authoritarian power is gone. Images and reports after the news broke showed some Iranians both mourning and celebrating in the streets, indicating the deep social divisions within Iranian society itself after last month’s brutal crackdown of protestors.

At the same time, there’s a profound human dimension that cannot be easily dismissed. Regardless of one’s political assessment of his leadership, Khamenei was a human being—an 86-year-old elder with family and a life beyond geopolitics. For years, I religiously watched and analyzed his speeches, and have even kept an archive of them. Khamenei’s rhetorical skills were unmatched among modern world leaders and his powers of persuasion spoke to the anti-imperialist in me. But he was a thug just like Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989) before him—and due to this, for years I regularly prayed for Khamenei’s death (especially after #Woman_Life_Freedom, and now here it is). Yet, to his credit, and despite the political thuggery on a mass level, his policies did keep Iran intact and protected from forces bent on tearing it apart and balkanizing it since 1979. Whether future leaders will be able to emulate this specific policy as successfully as he did, remains to be seen.

The news of his death does not land in a vacuum but in a human world where conflict costs real lives and triggers deep emotional responses. To feel sorrow, or at least discomfort at the violent circumstances of his end, is not necessarily an expression of political agreement with his policies but a recognition of the tragedy inherent in human death—especially within war. This part of the reaction reflects a universal ethical intuition: that death, especially violent death, is sorrowful and destabilizing even when the person dying is controversial or opposed.

There’s also the geopolitical anxiety that accompanies such a moment. Khamenei’s death was reported as part of a broader escalation of conflict that has already engulfed Iran and neighboring states, with fears of widespread instability rippling through the region—and beyond. Even if one feels that his removal might relieve some long-standing sources of tension, there’s reason to fear for the people caught in the ensuing instability—civilians, families, and ordinary citizens whose lives are disrupted by war’s expansion and by leadership vacuums. Understanding these practical human costs can temper any simple emotional reaction of celebration.

To have mixed feelings in this context—a combination of relief, sorrow, anxiety, empathy, and moral ambiguity—is not contradictory but deeply human. It reflects the complexity of holding justice and compassion together. One can recognize the political implications of his death, understand the historical grievances against his policies, and at the same time feel disturbed by the violence involved, the potential fallout for ordinary Iranian citizens, and the broader specter of war that this event has intensified.

Ultimately, the emotional landscape around Khamenei’s death is one where grief intersects with political judgment, where relief stands beside concern, and where solidarity with human life exists even in the face of opposition or critique of a powerful figure’s actions. These mixed feelings signal a mature and reflective engagement with history—one that refuses to flatten human tragedy into simplistic binaries and instead holds complexity as part of the ethical texture of our shared world.

Be that as it may, I wish all of the Iranian people well—be they supporters and opponents of Ayatollah Khamenei alike. I am not sure, however, whether the pro-Zionist supporters of the Pahlavi restoration mean Iran and all Iranians well. These people have proven themselves enemies in league with other enemies—and it is an ordinance of the Completion of the Bayān that whoever makes common cause with one tyrant against another tyrant, is themselves a tyrant.

On that note, I offer my condolences to those mourning the late Ayatollah Khamenei and I pray for the victory of Iran over the Satanic Epstein Reich of USrael.

إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ