00:00On February 28, 2026, the world woke up to a geopolitical earthquake.
00:05One of the most powerful and polarizing figures in modern history,
00:09Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reportedly eliminated in a massive joint U.S.-Israeli strike.
00:14That's right, Jessica.
00:15Two Israeli sources telling me and my colleague Tal Shalev that Israel has confirmed
00:20that the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
00:24has been killed as a result of those Israeli strikes.
00:27But while the headlines are focused on the architect himself,
00:30this story is about much more than just one man.
00:33It's the culmination of decades of ideological warfare,
00:37proxy battles, and a regional strategy that finally reached its breaking point.
00:41Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating
00:45imminent threats from the Iranian regime.
00:49Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:51And today we're breaking down 10 things you need to know about why Khamenei became a target
00:55and what happens next.
00:57Iran would have been much, much closer to a nuclear weapon,
01:01maybe even have a nuclear weapon by now.
01:04The post-Cold War power shift.
01:07After the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. stood as the world's lone superpower.
01:11It's the former Soviet Union that is now in trouble.
01:14Gorbachev acknowledged that he has left the country in a dangerous state.
01:18But as the decades passed, the unipolar moment faded.
01:22While China rose economically and Russia rebuilt its military,
01:26a loose counterblock began to form.
01:28On one side you have the U.S., EU, U.K., and Israel.
01:32On the other, an alignment of Russia, China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
01:37Khamenei positioned the regime as the ideological spearhead of this resistance,
01:41making the Islamic Republic a central player in a new era of global competition.
01:471979, the strategic flip.
01:49It's easy to forget, but before the 1979 Islamic Revolution,
01:54Iran was actually America's primary ally in the Middle East.
01:57When that alliance collapsed, the regional map was redrawn.
02:01Traumatized by the Iran-Iraq War, where Western powers backed Saddam Hussein,
02:06Tehran began investing in the Axis of Resistance.
02:09But Iran does have a network of allies across the region.
02:12It has a name for it, the Axis of Resistance.
02:14The goal? Avoid direct war by building a massive network of proxies
02:19to surround adversaries and deter them through asymmetric power.
02:23For nearly 40 years, it was a strategy that defined the region.
02:26They can also use these positions to attack U.S. interests
02:30or threaten Israel closer to its border.
02:32October 7th changed the equation.
02:35The events of October 7th, 2023 upended decades of regional rules.
02:40In the years that followed, the response was overwhelming.
02:43Hamas was severely degraded, Hezbollah's leadership was systematically targeted,
02:48and the Assad regime in Syria eventually collapsed.
02:51They toppled statues, including this one of Assad's late father,
02:55and they also liberated political prisoners.
02:59Suddenly, the forward defense perimeter Tehran had spent decades building was gone.
03:03For the first time in his long tenure, Khamenei looked exposed,
03:07and the architecture of his deterrence was crumbling.
03:10It must be punished and will be punished, he said.
03:14The revolutionary survivor.
03:16Ali Khamenei wasn't always the obvious choice for leader.
03:19Born in 1939 and a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini,
03:23he rose to power in 1989 despite not being the most senior cleric at the time.
03:27To make it happen, the Iranian constitution was actually amended to fit his credentials.
03:32And, as supreme leader, he had to build his power base.
03:36He did so by aligning himself with Iran's hardline military force,
03:41the Revolutionary Guard.
03:42To his supporters, he was a stabilizer and a guardian of sovereignty.
03:46To his detractors, he was the face of an immovable theocracy.
03:50Regardless of the perspective, his almost 37-year role
03:54made him the longest-serving contemporary autocrat in the region.
03:57But he was becoming increasingly unpopular.
04:02Under Khamenei's watch, power in Iran didn't just stay the same, it centralized.
04:07The supreme leader's office grew in influence,
04:09while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC,
04:13evolved from a paramilitary group into a military-economic powerhouse.
04:17While the IRGC oversees the Quds Force,
04:20which is responsible for foreign operations,
04:23it's also influential in national politics.
04:26By filtering elections and constraining reform movements,
04:29the regime shifted from revolutionary populism to a system of institutional control.
04:34It was a strategy built for durability, not flexibility.
04:38It controls key sectors of the Iranian economy,
04:41oil, construction, telecommunications, and finance,
04:44and is believed to hold up to 50% of the country's oil wealth.
04:48Proxy power and regional reach
04:50Khamenei's signature doctrine was simple.
04:53Leverage others to fight your battles.
04:55By funding and arming groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon,
04:59militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen,
05:01the Islamic Republic of Iran achieved strategic depth and deniable pressure on its enemies.
05:07However, proxy warfare is a double-edged sword.
05:09As you know, Iran's proxy armies are attacking Israel.
05:13At the same time, the United States has moved warships to the region.
05:17When those proxies escalate too far, the sponsor eventually inherits the consequences.
05:21Following the fallout of October 7th,
05:24that risk finally turned into a direct reality for Tehran.
05:27A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out
05:31massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime.
05:38Nuclear brinkmanship.
05:40Nothing defined Khamenei's relationship with the West more than the regime's nuclear program.
05:45Framed by Khamenei as a, quote,
05:47moral duty and a symbol of anti-Western defiance,
05:50the program became the ultimate bargaining chip and the ultimate flashpoint.
05:54In early 2021, analysts estimated it could have taken Iran
05:58between nine months and two years to build a nuclear device.
06:01As negotiations stalled and sanctions intensified,
06:04the program became a symbol of resistance to some.
06:08But to the U.S. and Israel,
06:09it was a destabilizing threat that effectively painted a target on the regime's back.
06:14We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran,
06:19including the Fordos site, Natanz, and Esfahan.
06:24Internal repression.
06:26While Khamenei was defiant on the world stage, he faced growing pressure at home.
06:31From the Green Movement to the 2022 Masa Amini protests and recent economic unrest,
06:36the regime responded with increasing force.
06:38What we're witnessing at the moment is different.
06:41These protests are mainly led by women,
06:43and they have the support across the full spectrum of Iranian society.
06:48Executions rose and civil society constricted, creating a paradox.
06:53The regime looked powerful and defiant externally,
06:55but was becoming increasingly brittle internally.
06:58By 2026, the greatest threat to the Islamic Republic wasn't just an invasion.
07:03It was a crisis of legitimacy.
07:06Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today accused demonstrators of damaging public property
07:11to please the U.S. president.
07:14Strategic isolation.
07:15By early 2026, the walls were closing in.
07:19With Hamas and Hezbollah weakened and the IRGC facing decapitation strikes,
07:24the regime's untouchable status vanished.
07:26You said we're seeing the largest buildup of firepower in this region,
07:30and that says a lot since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
07:35Deterrence only works if it's credible.
07:37And once the perimeter collapsed,
07:39the architect of the system became its greatest liability.
07:42The decision to target Khamenei wasn't just a symbolic gesture.
07:45It was a structural move to dismantle the very head of the regional resistance network.
07:50Iran's formerly supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is dead.
07:58Will the Muslim world erupt?
08:00The biggest question following the strike is what happens next.
08:04Many predicted that the death of the supreme leader would cause the Ummah to rise in a unified revolt.
08:09However, history suggests a different outcome.
08:12When Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020,
08:15there were threats and outrage, but no regional uprising.
08:18While Soleimani was not a religious figure,
08:21Khamenei's perch as a Shia theocrat actually made him despised by Sunnis who resented the regime's meddling.
08:26The Muslim world is politically fragmented and strategically self-interested,
08:30with most governments prioritizing stability over avenging Tehran.
08:34While escalation is possible, a unified global revolt remains unlikely.
08:39The conclusion
08:40Ali Khamenei was more than just a religious leader.
08:43He was the architect of a geopolitical doctrine that reshaped the Middle East.
08:48Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the unrest, as he always did, on outsiders, Iran's old enemies, the U.S., and of course
08:56Israel.
08:57His death marks the end of an era, but what follows, whether it's collapse, consolidation,
09:02or a total recalibration of Iranian power, remains to be seen.
09:06The Islamic Republic's greatest shield was always uncertainty.
09:10Now that the world has tested that shield, everyone is watching to see what emerges from the dust.
09:15Combat operations continue at this time in full force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved.
09:23What are your thoughts on these recent events?
09:25Let us know in the comments.
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