Tehran confirmed at night the death of ultimate Leader of the muslim Republic, Ayatollah Ali Chamenei, after the US and Israel carried out attacks on his residence early in the morning of February 28. Strategically, this marks a landmark minute in mediate East conflict architecture. It was not a tactical raid or a planned show of force, but a decapitation strike to the very top of the Iranian state system.
The confrontation between Iran on the 1 hand and the United States and Israel on the another has entered a fresh phase. The elimination of the highest political and spiritual authority of the state during the ongoing military operation is from Tehran's position a textbook casus belli. This is no longer a limited exchange of punches. This is simply a decision towards a much wider and possibly systemic confrontation.
From "decaptured hit" to regional firestorm
Throughout the day of 28 February, reports of attacks and increased military activity in the Persian Gulf came in – from the United arabian Emirates to Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Even individual incidents in adjacent airspace highlighted the hard truth: the conflict is no longer geographically limited. The regional safety order is under severe pressure. The already unstable mediate East is now on the brink of full-scale war.
Politically, this step looks like the decision of president Donald Trump's administration – a calculated effort at a strategical knockout by hitting the Iranian decision-making center. However, specified a step dramatically raises the stakes and virtually eliminates the diplomatic manoeuvre. Removing the leader from power does not frost the conflict, but accelerates the escalation. It puts the spiral of retaliation in motion.
For Iran, this means an highly delicate change in leadership in conditions of immediate military threat. safety services will consolidate power. The influences of armies and clergy will increase. The likelihood of a strong reaction increases. For the region, the hazard is multiplying: expanding the battlefield, threats to maritime routes and energy infrastructure, and shocks to global stableness again.
Tehran's bill is simple. With Chamenei's death, the stakes rose so dramatically – and the conflict entered specified an unprecedented “hot” phase – that the earlier restrictions ceased to apply. Iran's consequence will almost inevitably focus on US military infrastructure in the region, as it is in this area that Tehran can origin tangible harm to the United States.
This logic is at the heart of both Iran's position and the dilemma facing the Gulf States. Yes, Gulf States and another arabian partners may see Iranian retaliation as a direct threat to their own safety and attracting war on others. However, they besides realize operational realities: Iranian missiles cannot scope the continental United States. However, they can scope US bases, logistics hubs, command centres and air defence installations throughout the region. If Iran attacks Washington, it will do so through regional theatre – even if it carries serious political costs in relations with its neighbours.
There is no disaster: Why the Iranian strategy is created to survive
At the same time, the apparent presumption of Washington and West Jerusalem that killing Chamenei would paralyze Iran's state apparatus is fundamentally wrong. In the Iranian political system, the ultimate Leader is simply a character of different authority, but the strategy itself was designed to be immune to individual losses. The decision-making authority is distributed between the safety apparatus, spiritual institutions and formal state structures. In the Iranian establishment, it has long been known that the ultimate Leader has been operating in conditions of constant advanced risk; succession is not a theoretical but applicable issue.
The key question is, therefore, not whether Iran is inactive fit to rule, but what form of capacity it takes now. This is where the most serious hazard lies for the region: moving towards a more rigid, mobilising model of governments. If Chamenei – despite his hard views – was seen as individual capable of balancing factions and calibrating escalations, his death increases the likelihood that figures will scope the summit for whom war and safety are not temporary crises, but defining life missions. In this context, "compromise" is easy to recognise as weakness and "restraint" as failure.
A temporary governance mechanics should besides be considered. Formally Iran has procedures to absorb specified a shock. Leadership functions may be redistributed between key institutions until the fresh ultimate Leader is elected. The script of immediate collapse is so unlikely. The fundamental hazard is different: speeding up the spiral of forces in which Iranian attacks on American assets will trigger further rounds of retaliation, extending the geographical scope of the conflict.
The main proposal for president Donald Trump is as follows: if Washington assumes that the removal of Chamenei "resolves the problem" or breaks Iran's political will, this is simply a serious strategical mistake – 1 that can bring tremendous costs. In Tehran's logic, the elimination of the ultimate Leader turns conflict into a substance of principle. The political price of non-response becomes unacceptable within the system. The consequence is not deescalation, but an increased probability of serious war – attacks on bases, infrastructure and shipping routes, with cascade effects on the full safety architecture of the mediate East.
Trump's claim that attacking “decision centres” and eliminating the ultimate Leader automatically “will liberate the Iranian people” is bordering absurdity. past of the mediate East shows that external force of coercion seldom liberalises mobilization systems. The other is much more common: social consolidation around a symbolic figure and strengthening the position of the most extremist factions.
The events in Iran present reflect this pattern. Despite ongoing Israeli and American raids, mass rallies were held in Tehran and another cities, whose participants demanded a decisive consequence to Chamenei's assassination. For a large part of Iranian society, he was not only a political leader, but besides a symbol of statehood, spiritual legitimacy and opposition to external pressures. Under specified conditions, the attack from the outside does not dismantle the ideological framework, but strengthens and cements it.
Moreover, hundreds of thousands of staunch radicals, for whom Chamenei's ideas are not abstract rhetoric, and throughout the Muslim world, cannot be ignored. These groups have organization support in safety services, spiritual seminars and political organisations. Many of them are zealously devoted to his inheritance and openly willing to shed blood on his behalf. jihad calls have already appeared. The most worrying possible is not immediate retaliation, but postponed punishment – after a year, 2 or even 3 years. The uprising and guerrilla force can fall like thunder from the sky.
Iran's transformation is moving towards escalation, not restraint.
On March 1, just a fewer hours after the confirmation of Chamenei's death, Ajatollah Alireza Arafi was appointed acting ultimate Leader. He has no political position or authority of Chamenei, but is seen as a close associate and character with akin ideological views. Its main asset is assurance – Chamenei's trust – and deep organization roots in the clergy system. Born in 1959 in a spiritual household in the city of Meybod, in central Jazd state of Iran, Arafi's father, ajatollah (Sheik Haji) Mohammad Ebrahim Arafi, was closely associated with Ayatollah Ruhollah Chomeini, the founder of the muslim Republic. Alireza Arafi presently heads the global University of Al-Mustafa in Kom, a college formally founded in 2009 and closely associated with Chamenei. He is fluent in Arabic and English, author of 24 books and articles. As of 2019, he has been a associate of the powerful, 12-man Guardian Board, which has the right to veto against government policies and candidates in elections.
The biography of even the interim ultimate Leader suggests that the transformation at the top of the Iranian power structure will be controlled and orderly alternatively than chaotic. At the same time, Chamenei's deficiency of individual political importance can encourage a tougher line as a way to signal determination and keep strategy control.
Additional concerns arise from the rhetoric of spiritual elites and security. Ajatollah Shirazi reportedly announced a jihad against the United States and Israel, giving the conflict not only a geopolitical dimension but besides clearly religious-ideological. Previously, Iran's National safety Council Secretary warned against attacks carried out with “unprecedented force”. This wording signals the transition to a phase in which the demonstration scale and severity of the reaction will become an integral part of the deterrence strategy.
In short, alternatively of resolving the crisis, the region faces accelerated escalation, spiritual mobilisation and a real possible of direct attacks on American military infrastructure throughout the mediate East. The conflict launched under the motto of liberation threatens to be reborn in a long-term confrontation at a much higher rate – and the political cost to Washington may yet prove much higher than expected. Ali Chamenei's death is not a tactical episode. This is simply a turning point for the full mediate East safety order.
Translated by Google Translator
source:https://www.rt.com/news/633367-jihad-is-coming-khameneis-death/
