Removing Ali Khamenei is done, but there is still a lot of work to do for the US and Israel

Ayatollah Khamenei's death brings more questions on what will happen next: will Islamic clerics stand to replace him or will Western powers restore democracy in the country?

Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash

Manuel Mogato | March 2, 2026

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead.

Both the United States and Iran confirmed that the Islamic cleric leader was killed in an air strike at his secure Tehran compound, and his body was found, according to a senior Israeli official.

The US and Israeli joint air strikes continued in Tehran and many parts of Iran to decimate its offensive capabilities and disable missile attacks in US bases around the Middle East, particularly in Israel, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates.

Tehran continued to strike back, hitting Tel Aviv, Dubai, Manama, and Doha. The US claimed the Iranian missile and drone attacks did not result in casualties, although some facilities were damaged and destroyed.

The US had evacuated its non-essential staff from embassies around the Middle East before the attack.

Iran would not attack Saudi Arabia, risking anger from the Sunni Muslims around the world. Striking some Gulf States immediately drew condemnation from many countries, such as France, Germany, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Australia and Canada supported the air strikes.

Russia and China just observed as America’s military power was once again demonstrated for the second time this year, after Venezuela.

The United States has assembled a massive air power in the Middle East for weeks. Two carrier strike groups - one in the Arabian Sea (USS Abraham Lincoln) and another in the Mediterranean Sea (USS Gerard Ford) - were already in position for the strike weeks before the attack.

A possible third carrier group, USS Nimitz, has already sent back to the Middle East to increase America’s firepower.

In addition, 120 combat aircraft, including four squadrons of multi-role fighters, have been deployed in the Middle East before the attacks.

Israel said it carried out preemptive strikes on Iran to remove a threat that would destroy the Jewish state.

It coordinated the air strikes with the Americans, taking months of planning and preparation for the surgical and precision attacks.

Before the attacks were launched, the US and Israel already possessed precise and accurate targets - Iran’s air defenses, military bases, and missile launch sites, as well as the locations where Iran’s top leadership, including senior generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, were hiding.

Ali Khamenei was not alone. His defense minister and the top IRG commander were also killed in the air strikes.

The attacks could not have happened without impeccable intelligence through technical, digital, and human sources on the ground.

Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, has built an effective network of informants inside Iran, exploiting the large Jewish population in the Shiite Muslim-dominated country.

Israel and Iran, formerly known as Persia, have a long history dating back to the ancient period.

The Persian ruler, Cyrus the Great, who had defeated the Babylonians under King Darius, allowed the captive Jews to return to their lands in 539 BC.

Some Jews opted to remain in Babylon, present-day Iraq, under Persian control, while others settled in Persia.

These areas were not unknown to the wandering Israelites before a Jewish kingdom was established in the Levant.

For instance, Abraham lived for a time in Ur, present-day Iraq, with his father Terah, and his brothers Nabor and Haran, before they moved to Canaan.

Jewish history was chronicled in the Bible’s Old Testament during the Persian period, cementing the relations between the Jews and Persians.

It was only in 1979, when the radical Islamic clerics gained a foothold in Iran after an Islamic revolution, that relations between the two countries deteriorated.

The Ayatollahs vowed to destroy the Jewish state, creating proxies around Israel, like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen.

Israel’s actions against Hamas and Hezbollah were self-preservation. Its air strikes in Iran were the same.

The air strikes may have succeeded in eliminating Iran’s top political and military leadership, but there is still uncertainty in the region.

Who will replace Ali Khamenei, who took power in 1989, remains a big question mark. Only Islamic clerics close to Khamenei are possible candidates to become the next supreme leader.

But, how many of these clerics who are also close advisers to Khamenei survived the US and Israel’s air strikes?

Will this embolden the Iranian people to move in and replace the Ayatollahs?

The protest movement, which began in December 2025 and spread like wildfire in 100 cities across the country, was quashed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, who killed thousands of street protesters.

Will they go back to the streets?

Iranians are eager to replace the radical Islamic clerics running the country for decades, but distrust the Americans and the Western states that changed regimes in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

These states plunged into bloody civil wars, and the region remained unstable after old regimes were removed.

Uncertainty remains in Iran even after the elimination of Ali Khamenei. The people of Iran must be allowed to decide for themselves what will happen next.

Israel, the United States, and the Western states must not meddle in the future of Iran.

If it wants to restore the monarchy or chart its own direction under a more democratic and secular leadership, so be it.

The US and Israel had achieved their objective of removing the Iranian cleric. However, they still have a lot of work to do to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and create trouble in the region.

The work is not done yet.