The military success of the attack is beyond dispute. Within 24 hours of the first bombs, the United States and its ally Israel succeeded on Saturday in killing the supreme leader of their arch-enemy Iran. The 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei was probably hit by an Israeli missile in his home in Tehran.
Just like at the beginning of this year, with the imprisonment of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump hopes that eliminating the leader can create a new regime. In addition to Khamenei, Iran’s army chief, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and the minister of defense were also fatally hit.
Eliminating enemy leaders is also a tactic Israel has used for decades. In recent years, several Hamas leaders and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah were killed in an Israeli attack. What Israel has also experienced is that eliminating the head of an organization does not immediately eliminate the associated ideology. No matter how hard Hamas was hit, new leaders always emerged.
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In Venezuela, the Trump administration was already in contact with a possible successor to Maduro. That is not the case in Iran. On Sunday afternoon, 66-year-old cleric Alireza Arafi was nominated to begin the search for a new supreme leader. The 88-member Council of Experts will soon elect the final new supreme leader. So that is certainly not the case yet regime change that Israel and the US have in mind.
Hour of freedom
In the eight-minute video that Trump posted on his social media on Saturday, he gave an insight into how to proceed. Wearing a white cap, he told the “great, proud people of Iran” that the hour of their freedom is near. “Bombs will fall everywhere. When we are done, take over your government, it will be yours.”
These words could indicate that the American-Israeli bombing will continue for a while. Worst hit is a girls’ school in southern Iran, where more than a hundred people were killed in a US-Israeli airstrike. The school was next to a Revolutionary Guard rocket launch site.
Only when no more bombs fall, Trump said, would the time be ripe to depose the regime. It is an unanswered question how the people should do that. Air strikes alone have never deposed a regime. And when they indirectly contributed to a leadership change, as in Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011), it resulted in years of chaos.
Khamenei’s death does not mean that the power of the Revolutionary Guards has been broken
Cheers rose at rallies inside and outside Iran on Saturday as the first rumors of Khamenei’s death reached Iranians. But shared disgust with the unpopular leader is not a way forward. The Iranian people are strongly divided about the future: whether or not the Shah will return? Moreover, there is no clear leader of the resistance.
In addition, Khamenei’s death does not mean that the power of the Revolutionary Guards has been broken. This group, which in addition to an elite militia also controls large parts of the economy, will not simply give up its privileged position.
A man holds a photo of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Saturday, during a gathering of mourners in Tehran on Sunday.
Photo ATTA KENARE / AFP
General Prohibition of Violence
The American-Israeli attack, which is in direct contradiction to international law, would probably have been carried out less quickly if there had not been a radical right-wing government in both countries. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are not known for their respect for, for example, the UN Charter’s General Prohibition of Violence. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on suspicion of war crimes in Gaza.
For Netanyahu, the death of the ayatollah is a decades-old wish come true. Now the moment had come when he also persuaded Trump to contribute to this. But the American-Israeli attack does much more than just take out the enemy leader; the two allies plunge an entire region into great uncertainty.
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That uncertainty affects Israel itself, where the population was again in the bomb shelters this weekend. Eight people were killed when an Iranian missile struck an apartment complex in Bet Shemesh, near Jerusalem, on Sunday afternoon. But popular holiday destinations such as Dubai now suddenly appear to be in the line of fire: in addition to Israel, Iran is also firing back at Arab countries that host American bases.
In recent decades, the Gulf States have profiled themselves as beacons of stability, and with their oil wealth, spectacular buildings and sports tournaments, they are a stopping place for business people and tourists. If there is anything that threatens that position, it is regional unrest.
Initially, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia spoke out strongly against Iran’s attacks on their territory. Qatar and the Emirates said they reserved the right to hit back, Bahrain called the Iranian retaliation “treacherous” and the Saudis warned Iran of “serious consequences.”
However, the Gulf states will also reconsider their partnership with the US. After all, it was the American attack that provoked Iranian retaliation on their territory. What kind of ally is that, who just sets the region on fire?
Mourning meeting in Tehran on Sunday for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Saturday.
Photo ATTA KENARE / AFP
Escalating rhetoric prevails
The escalating rhetoric dominates. After Khamenei’s death, Iran announced that it would retaliate with brutal force, after which Trump promised even greater violence. Calls from other world leaders for a ceasefire or diplomatic solutions have so far fallen flat.
Western countries such as Canada and Australia supported the attack. EU foreign chief Kaja Kallas did not explicitly support the attack, but did call Iran a danger to global security. Critical voices came from, among others, the Swiss, who called the American-Israeli attack alarming, and the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who stated that the attack contributes to a “more hostile” and “insecure” world order.
Around the time of the Iraq war in 2003, a number of popular expressions emerged that would be quoted for years to come: regime change, preemptive strike and weapons of mass destruction. These are words that resonate today, although in Iran it is not about weapons of mass destruction but about the nuclear bombs that the country is said to be working on.
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Trump and Netanyahu argued that Iran was so close to a nuclear bomb that an attack was necessary. But Netanyahu has been claiming for decades that Iran will have a bomb ready in “days” or “weeks,” without evidence. Israel would prefer that all its enemies no longer have any weapons, while it retains the most powerful army in the region.
The attack on Iran fits into a new world order, in which the law of the strongest prevails, in which a ‘Peace Council’ with autocracies must replace the UN, and in which powerful countries do not care about any legal rules. This new order is chaotic and uncertain – for the region, but ultimately also for the rest of the world.
