Why did Trump veto the killing of Iran's supreme leader?
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not just Iran's supreme leader, he is also Israel's arch nemesis.
Hawks within the Israeli establishment – and many ordinary Israelis besides – would love to see him dead, arguing that he is a legitimate target whose removal would eliminate one of the gravest threats to the Jewish state.
To bolster their case, they note the limited blowback following the assassination last year of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief in Lebanon, and Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader behind the October 7 massacre.
Yet, according to American officials, Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei, refusing to entertain the idea of 'going after the political leadership' on the grounds that Iran had not killed any Americans.
Whatever the rationale, many analysts believe assassinating Khamenei would be a perilous gamble – one that could easily misfire by paving the way for an even more hardline successor.
Khamenei's mixed legacy on nuclear weapons
Khamenei may be no peacemaker, but he did place a fatwa effectively banning Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It is unclear whether the ruling has survived in its original form – and many in Israel set little store by it.
The assassination of 10 senior Iranian generals may already have strengthened the regime's fundamentalist wing, even as it has dealt a serious blow to its military command structure.
None of those killed in Israel's decapitation strikes was a cuddly liberal. In fact, all are believed to have been aligned with the regime's uncompromising 'Principlist' faction.
The Principlists – so named for their dogged adherence to the founding tenets of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 – have long held sway within Khameneni's inner circle, marginalising more pragmatist and reformist voices.
With extensive political, military and clerical networks, they champion confrontation with the West and advocate a stricter reading of Islam's moral codes.
Yet even among the Principlists, sub-factions vie for dominance. Some of the slain generals were thought to have been more pragmatic than the Shia supremacists of the so-called Paydari Front, regarded as the most extreme wing of the fundamentalist camp.
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Sky News
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Israel-Iran live: Iran launches more missiles at Israel, IDF says - as Israel strikes TV station on air
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Times
32 minutes ago
- Times
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
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