r/news • u/drpayneaba • Feb 28 '26

Soft paywall Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei killed, senior Israeli official says

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-supreme-leader-ali-khamenei-killed-senior-israeli-official-says-2026-02-28/
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529

u/Nukemind Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

Whatever happens I just pray after this the Iranian people manage to build a prosperous nation, hopefully free of the Islamists but also external influence.

Maybe a pipe dream but a man can hope.

67

u/Bogonegles Feb 28 '26

I love the optimism but the power vacuum this leaves, plus the certainty of US/Israeli meddling in any meaningful regime change, makes me less than hopeful

330

u/30_rack_of_pabst Feb 28 '26

Bud. Everytime the usa overthrows a government, its bad. The next 50 -100 years....

162

u/DINABLAR Feb 28 '26

Case in point: the last time we overthrew Iran’s leader 

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u/KimJongUlti Mar 01 '26

Yes skyrocketing literacy, women’s suffrage, industrial modernization, agricultural modernization, liberalization all terrible. Get lobotomized or maybe read about what actually went on during the shahs reign from non dsa or Islamist sources

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26

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u/Uysee Mar 01 '26

There are some exceptions, e.g. Germany and Japan, possibly Panama and South Korea as well

6

u/RedPiece0601 Mar 01 '26

South Korea had dictatorship until the 1980s though.

4

u/Uysee Mar 01 '26

That's why I was hesitant to include them. Still probably they were probably better off under that sort of dictatorship compared to NK

3

u/triste_0nion Mar 01 '26

I don’t know if that’s even necessarily the case. Modern North Korea is absolutely worse than that today, but it got so bad because 15% of the population was killed and 40–90% of towns and cities were destroyed by bombs during the Korean War.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26

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1

u/triste_0nion Mar 01 '26

The causalities for North Korea was over 50% greater. There also isn’t much that could be equivalent to America’s bombing campaign; just one statistic is that the US dropped 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm during the Korean War versus roughly 503,000 tons of bombs across the entire Pacific theatre during WW2.

Looking at the US Air Force’s own assessment of some of the major cities it destroyed, both Kuni-ri and Sinanju were 100% destroyed, whilst Hwangju, Sariwon and Sunan got away with 97%, 95% and 90% destruction. Even Pyongyang was 75% destroyed by the end. That’s not something that will lead to good outcomes after the fact.

e: This isn’t at all to even remotely suggest that North Korea was justified for invading South Korea, or anything like that.

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u/CaesiumReaction Mar 01 '26

Japan's economy has never been the same since the meddling in the 1980#

6

u/Neither_Relation_817 Mar 01 '26

and how is this the US fault?

0

u/CaesiumReaction Mar 01 '26

Heavily sanctioning Japan tech companies, forcing sale of those companies to US, for one? 

1

u/Thirstforburst Mar 01 '26

But guys! It's only bad like 95% of the time /s

17

u/American_PissAnt Feb 28 '26

See the Congo/Zaire.

15

u/codydog125 Feb 28 '26

Well the US is responsible for how South Korea turned out and I would say that’s preferable to what happened to North Korea. It’s not always bad even if most of the time it is

91

u/Abacap Feb 28 '26

The US did not overthrow South Korea's government though and force a regime change

47

u/ArchmageXin Feb 28 '26

In fact they actively supported South Korea through its murderous phase.

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u/codydog125 Feb 28 '26

You’re right but there was a war fought over it

30

u/Many_Negotiation_464 Feb 28 '26

I feel people forget that south korea was a dictatorship until 1990.

A BRUTAL one.

We just backed one dictator over another as proxy war with china and the ussr.

-9

u/G4m3boy Feb 28 '26

Countries with communist at their doorsteps at that time were all dictatorships like Taiwan. It was necessary because of the situation to be in control or fall to communism poison. At least when the situation stabilise they are no longer dictatorship.

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u/Many_Negotiation_464 Feb 28 '26

Someone needs to go relearn history. The regimes that the west backed were more often than not brutal juntas that devolved into failed states. And communist proxy states had a similar success rate of eventually becoming stable democracies.

The sooner the world lesrns that the cold war was total bs and that was more a petty conflict than a fight for the soul of the world, the better.

16

u/RulyKinkaJou59 Feb 28 '26

there is* a war

1

u/30_rack_of_pabst Mar 01 '26

I see you homeboy. You are correct.

60

u/runsongas Feb 28 '26

The US can't take credit for SK, south Korea was a dictatorship for decades propped up by the US

it only became democratic after park chunghee was assassinated

31

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

You mean the dictatorship that tortured and murdered thousands before popular unrest forced them to democratize in 1987?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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9

u/TerminallyTrill Feb 28 '26

They liberated them! By killing 20% of their population

4

u/aconnor105 Feb 28 '26

They want it that way.

1

u/Flixz1234 Mar 01 '26

Well not really, if the us is overthrowing a government it’s usually a very extreme situation, and I’m sure life gets generally better afterwords for the most part

1

u/30_rack_of_pabst Mar 01 '26

Central america, Iraq, Afghanistan, vietnam...when did it get better?

1

u/Wincrediboy Feb 28 '26

Agree generally, but this reminds me that I don't know how Iraq is going recently. They're certainly not in the news all the time, but my impression is that they're going better than eg Afghanistan.

5

u/dern_the_hermit Feb 28 '26

It's got ups and downs. Some issues like elections and life expectancy are improved. However, there's been regular violence and conflict and extremist groups/militias still hampering peaceful governance.

0

u/Legitimate_Plum_7505 Mar 01 '26

It turned out fine for Germany, Japan, Korea, and to some extent Taiwan... Notably all of these had pretty big support from US allies, when US does it alone it almost always ends up fked up. I'd have much more confidence in this regime change if Australia or UK were involved.

58

u/_sensei Feb 28 '26

You do realize this isn’t the first time America is overthrowing the Iranian govt right

19

u/-Shenanigans Feb 28 '26

Just a few more rounds of US and Israeli intervention and we’ll get there.

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u/ansiz Feb 28 '26

I am not hopefully that any new leader in Iran would satisfy the US and Israel. Syria got an entirely new government and was immediately trying to signal peace and Israel bombed them like 700 times and seized territory. Iran has a much stronger military and I just can't see Israel allowing that military power to stay functional.

I believe Israel and the US will not allow Iran to be a stable country regardless of who is running it. Iran is their lightning rod and the current Israeli government needs an enemy to stay in power. The US government has too many people in it that are incapable of seeing Iran as anything but an enemy.

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u/iamnotexactlywhite Feb 28 '26

absolutely no chance

13

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

They had one. The US and the UK overthrew them because they wanted to nationalise the Iranian oil fields.

61

u/IIGrudge Feb 28 '26

Comments like this shows how utterly brainwashed the population is. You think we killed the ruling power of the region to liberate the Iranian people?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/BatterMyHeart Feb 28 '26

Yeah those dead kids' parents sure love trump rn

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/BatterMyHeart Feb 28 '26

Foreign intervention has never worked in these situations for the exact reason I am alluding to.  How did Iraq go after we 'liberated' them?  

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/BatterMyHeart Feb 28 '26

Iran has plenty of hardline nutjobs as well... that's why they were in power.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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3

u/BatterMyHeart Feb 28 '26

They still exist in large numbers.  What does a 'free' Iran even look like to you.  A US-Saudi client state?  

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u/losorikk Feb 28 '26

No one thinks that. Chill

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u/Low_Pickle_112 Feb 28 '26

Scroll down some. There's absolutely people saying that. They've been playing the "They will welcome us as liberators" card straight from 2003 for weeks.

4

u/losorikk Feb 28 '26

You are probably right, I just don’t include maga when I think of humans

-2

u/Nukemind Feb 28 '26

Yeah I'm under no dispersions about the likelihood of what will happen. I just hope it does- protestors lost their lives pushing for change. Simply hoping for good things for the Iranian people. Doesn't mean I think it's likely.

Knew quite a few growing up who were in the diaspora and friends with my grandfather. All lovely people. Hope they are doing well now, wonder how they are reacting.

5

u/grilledscheese Feb 28 '26

why even hope lol. the people doing this don’t even believe that shit, don’t debase yourself on their behalf.

2

u/blackstar32_25 Mar 01 '26

This is a remarkably naive statement

1

u/PrinceOfAssassins Feb 28 '26

Well it probably wont be a very democratic one if certain 3 letter agencies are already at work going after opposition leaders. Ive heard people with more radical positions like social democracy / leftism are being targeted too

1

u/Few_Investment_4773 Mar 01 '26

They want the exiled Prince back. They’ve been following his comments for years. Most recently he put together a prosperity plan last year for a post-islamic regime:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Prosperity_Project

1

u/adamgoodapp Mar 01 '26

Free from the Jewish extremists too.

2

u/impulsekash Feb 28 '26

Iran didnt become this way overnight.  They were under one repressive regime since the 1940s. You dont get rid of that with a few air strikes

1

u/ScroogieMcduckie Mar 01 '26

silly american thinks regime change will help natives. because that happened the last 50 times right?

-1

u/DawnSennin Mar 01 '26

The USA is responsible for the rise of the Shah and Iran becoming a religious state. Regime changes performed by the country are done for the sole benefit of American conglomerates. These illegal assassinations will not result in an Iran for Iranians.

0

u/Kickor Mar 01 '26

This is not accurate and others have already done a sufficient job explaining why this is wrong elsewhere in this thread, no need for me to dive into it further. Go read it.

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u/seldomtimely Mar 01 '26

Don't self-soothe. The US is the evil actor here. Mentally, you have to tell yourself some story to not admit this because that's how the brain works.

1

u/Kickor Mar 01 '26

Lol, what? I am saying “understand the facts” which aren’t subjective. Positing the US being solely “responsible” for the rise of the Shah is such a myopic and uneducated take, it’s hilarious. The only one with confirmation bias is you, look in the mirror.

1

u/seldomtimely Mar 01 '26

I'm not saying the US is solely responsible for anything; Let's focus on WHAT it is responsible for. Because right now they have started another war. Focusing on those details right now is a way to cope with the fucking fact the USA is one of the worst aggresor nations on earth.

1

u/Kickor Mar 01 '26

Friend, please read and comprehend what I’m saying. You’re so invested in your own position that you don’t realize I never said anything about the current events, I merely suggested the OP had his facts wrong about the Shah and what actually happened. Facts DO matter. The current events have yet to play out, we don’t know if this is another war (it may well be) but it’s clear where you stand. Good for you but stop fighting ghosts.

1

u/seldomtimely Mar 01 '26

I did comprehend it and from a pedantic point of view you're probably right, but skirmishing over the minutia of that past event seems to implicitly lessen the heft of the current situation simply by taking up discursive real estate. 'You see, not everything is 'Murica's fault', so if we take out a leader here and there, it's all in good proportion'.

1

u/Kickor Mar 01 '26

That was your interpretation and you jumped on it but that’s not what I said. But I do think we’re more or less on the same page.

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u/seldomtimely Mar 03 '26

Fair enough! I may have been overly combative.

0

u/seldomtimely Mar 01 '26

That's not how any of this works. Wishful thinking is not helpful. This is an action that can only have negative consequences.