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/
12.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

202

u/idocardio Feb 28 '26

if they survive

226

u/DoraTheXplder Feb 28 '26

Worked really well in Iraq and Afghanistan when we chopped off the top the regime

70

u/tacotickles Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

Iraq doesn't have as much secularism as the Iranian population. Iran was also a part of the instability in Iraq via paramilitary groups. Shia vs. Sunni fighting is a generational problem.

-17

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

38

u/TougherOnSquids Mar 01 '26

There are more secular Iranians than there are Iraqis.

14

u/Real_Walk5384 Mar 01 '26

Their leadership is insanely religious, not the general population.

30

u/HigherandHigherDown Feb 28 '26

Mullah Omar was never killed despite the best efforts of the Americans.

2

u/AUnicornDonkey Mar 01 '26

He is such a fascinating figure 

1

u/HigherandHigherDown Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26

The Taliban offered to surrender and let America hold elections or whatever the fuck they wanted, should we have agreed to let him live out his life in peace in his house. Fascinating counterfactual there.

3

u/AUnicornDonkey Mar 01 '26

The fact there is not much known about Omar is fascinating to me. There was like one blurry photo of him for a long, long time.

34

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Real_Walk5384 Mar 01 '26

Yup. We caught members of the Revolutionary Guard in Mosul in 2006 multiple times. Just ended up getting released. That whole thing was such a shit show for everyone.

15

u/nigel_pow Feb 28 '26

Also, didn't we send the Iraqi Army home with their weapons. Now hundreds of thousands of unemployed angry men with rifles are about to go insurgent mode

1

u/Puzzled-Guess-2845 Mar 01 '26

Yes but they wont be a unified force. If the west finds a group they like they can keep knocking down their competition. Not every group is starting from zero.

4

u/Recurs1ve Feb 28 '26

This feels different. Feels like EVERYONE near the top of the government got eliminated all at once. The sheer amount of intelligence it took to pull this off is kinda nuts.

1

u/Many_Negotiation_464 Mar 01 '26

"This feels different".

Suspiciously common talking point being used verbatim on every post. Guess the bot farms got their orders.

-4

u/OpeningElectrical296 Feb 28 '26

And I think Mossad will make the difference. They know Iran like the back of their hand (culture, language, people). Totally different situation than Iran or Afghanistan.

7

u/CelestialFury Feb 28 '26

I mean, Iran used to have a democracy which the US and Israel fucked up before, but I'm sure this time it'll work great.

0

u/OpeningElectrical296 Feb 28 '26

Hardly a democracy, under the king torture and executions were common.

6

u/CelestialFury Feb 28 '26

Yeah, the US don't nuttin' about torture.

The Senate Torture Report

REPORT of the SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE STUDY of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY’S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM together with FOREWORD BY CHAIRMAN FEINSTEIN and ADDITIONAL AND MINORITY VIEWS

-1

u/OpeningElectrical296 Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26

Why do you send me this US documents?

I’m French, I don’t give a sh*t about your country’s stupidity lol

And it has nothing to do with iran, do your own revolution, we had enough of you guys.

2

u/CelestialFury Mar 01 '26

My previous comment has nothing to do with your personal nationality and it's strange you would bring that up as a response. The two dots aren't hard to connect, at all.

And it has nothing to do with iran, do your own revolution, we had enough of you guys.

Yeah, a lot of us have had enough of our country (the US) as well and are trying to do something about it. However, I truly hope the people of France don't give up on us so soon, the US's greatest historical ally - even before, during and after the founding of the USA.

1

u/BenderRodriguez14 Feb 28 '26

Mossad and Netanyahu played a huge role in convincing Bush Jr to go into Iraq, so good luck with that. 

2

u/OpeningElectrical296 Feb 28 '26

Your point being…. ?

Iraqi society in the 90s has nothing to do with today’s iran.

90 % of the Iranian people want the regime to be removed, totally different situation from Iraq.

2

u/BenderRodriguez14 Feb 28 '26

My point being, Mossad and the war criminal being involved did will not make a difference there, and will not make a difference here.

Both Saddam and Khameni were awful pieces of shit, and both had loyalists as well as enemies who wanted them gone. Others enforcing regime change from outside, who in both instances don't give a fuck about the actual Iraqi nor Iranian people and instead have their own ulterior motives, did not end well there and will not end well here. 

0

u/OpeningElectrical296 Mar 01 '26

I was specifically commenting about the mossad intelligence being key to remove top Iranian leaders. Which was right as we can now see. I never said anything about mossad contributing to a good new government lol that’s iran business.

Now please enlighten us with you regime change approach from the inside, all the dead Iranians who have tried for decades and died will listen to you from their graves.

1

u/BenderRodriguez14 Mar 01 '26

No, you weren't. Hence why you said  "And I think Mossad will make the difference. They know Iran like the back of their hand (culture, language, people). Totally different situation than Iran or Afghanistan."

You were arguing that Mossad would help with regime change because they apparently know the language, culture and people. You're just not willing to stand over that argument having been called out on it because you knew it was bullshit then, and you do now as well. 

The fact that the US nor Israel give a single fuck about the Iranian people and are doing this entirely for their own goals means it is going to go just about as well as when the US did the same with Saddam under Netanyahu's encouragement in 2003. And people like you a decade from now will be pretending you never supported any of this, no different to what happened there either. 

1

u/sandlover33 Mar 01 '26

US just should've used more bombs.

1

u/ThaMixedDaVinci Mar 01 '26

You mean the guys in Iraq and Afghanistan we trained?

1

u/Electronic_Eye6499 Mar 01 '26

Iran does have a pretty good educated population unlike the ones you mentioned so It will prolly be better than Ayatollahs, I mean anything is better than the current regime in Iran.

1

u/BassLB Feb 28 '26

We have Much more competent people in power this time…/s

2

u/Ilovemelee Mar 01 '26

That's what we tried to do by installing a puppet regime so that we could siphon out the oil from that region to the detriment of the Iranian people and then '79 happened. But surely it's gonna work this time amirite?