Why Iran’s supreme leader hasn’t been assassinated (yet)
It’s difficult to fathom how the regime could come back from Israel’s attacks, which have decimated its military, nuclear facilities and whatever remains of its credibility with its own civilian population.
Amid the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel, which erupted on Friday and could now spiral out of control, a key question remains as to whether or not President Donald Trump stepped in to veto an Israeli assassination attempt on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
The first round of Israeli attacks appeared to take the Iranian regime by surprise, killing several high-ranking officials at home in their beds, including top generals Hossein Salami, Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Guard, and Mohammad Bagheri, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces.
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Kylie Moore-Gilbert is a political scientist specialising in Islam and the Middle East. She was detained in Iran in 2018 and served more than two years of a 10-year sentence before being freed in November 2020.
