Listen
/
1.0x
As Iran prepares for the funeral ceremonies of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, the scale of anticipated public participation indicates that they are set to become one of the most significant mass gatherings in contemporary Iranian history. Reports indicate that vast crowds are expected to arrive from across the country, alongside official delegations from numerous states. This moment offers a clear opportunity to assess the U.S. and Israeli decision to assassinate him in February 2026. The operation rested on a flawed assessment of Khamenei’s real role and standing within Iran’s social and political structure. In this regard, the United States was shaped largely by Israeli media narratives and intelligence assessments—accounts that substantially underestimated Ayatollah Khamenei’s popularity, institutional influence, and capacity for social mobilization. The preparations already underway and the expected scale of the turnout make this analytical failure harder to ignore. They show how far American policymakers relied on an incomplete and one-sided picture of Iranian reality.
To understand this miscalculation, it is necessary to return to the framework that had cast a long shadow over analyses of Iran before the attack. For years, Israeli media outlets and a number of research institutions close to Israel’s political and security establishment portrayed Khamenei as a leader with limited social backing, governing a society marked by deep divisions, economic discontent, and generational distance. These narratives repeatedly suggested that removing him could trigger serious instability, or even a fundamental transformation of Iran’s political system. Such an image aligned with the stated purpose of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation: weakening and destabilizing Iran’s political order. Yet this analysis ignored the more complex realities of Iranian society and politics. In assessing Khamenei’s structural position and the attachment of significant parts of society to ideas such as independence, security, and resistance to external pressure, Washington effectively accepted a narrative that minimized decisive factors. The result was an expectation that his removal would rapidly expose internal fractures. Developments since then—including a relatively orderly leadership transition and the continued functioning of core institutions—have pointed in the opposite direction.
