Good morning. Iran’s supreme leader is dead, and the country has vowed to avenge him. (Read his obituary.) Today, Iran, Israel and the United States are continuing to exchange strikes.
Toppled
Nations are usually wary about killing the leaders of other countries. In addition to moral and legal concerns, there can be unintended consequences. How will the enemy retaliate? What if the successor is worse? What precedent is set? This weekend, Israel and the United States took that gamble. Their military campaign killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with several of the country’s other top leaders. The bombing would continue this week, President Trump said, until there is “peace throughout the Middle East.” The Islamic revolution that took control of the country in 1979 has been helmed by two supreme leaders. Khamenei, whom Trump described in a post online yesterday as “one of the most evil people in History,” was the second. He steered the country through nearly four decades of conflict with the West. Now he is gone. It’s not clear if that leadership structure will last, or what comes next. The operationThe U.S. and Israeli governments had been planning to begin their assault at night. But the C.I.A., which tracked Khamenei for months, learned that he would be in the same compound as other top Iranian officials on Saturday morning. So the two countries changed their plans. Israeli warplanes took off just after 6 a.m. local time; less than three hours later, the explosions began, killing Khamenei and other officials. That was the start of a bombardment by Israeli and U.S. forces that lasted from morning until night on Saturday, and has continued today. The countries targeted sites where other top Iranian officials were gathering, as well as military bases and air defenses across the country. This is where forces struck:
One strike hit a girls’ elementary school near a naval base in southern Iran and killed more than 60 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent and state news outlets. Videos from the scene showed piles of bloodied, dusty backpacks. U.S. officials said they were investigating. Iran, as its leaders promised, retaliated broadly. It fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, forcing people to crowd into bomb shelters. Iran also targeted Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, all of which host U.S. military bases, as well as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Here’s where the Islamic Republic struck:
Both sides continued to exchange fire today. American and Israeli strikes are falling in Iran, and smoke is blackening the sky above Tehran. Iran also fired waves of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel and Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, killing a woman in Tel Aviv — the first fatality in Israel from the conflict — and injuring several others in the U.A.E. What comes next?Khamenei’s death may push Iran further into political turmoil, only weeks after state forces killed thousands of anti-government protesters. Trump invited police and military forces to “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves.” A Times reporter described Trump’s messages as “rife with ambiguity.” As U.S. intelligence officials modeled possible outcomes leading up to the strike, one scenario suggested that a complete change in government was unlikely. Instead, it said, members of the Revolutionary Guard would try to assert more control but might be willing to curb the country’s nuclear program or take a more conciliatory stance toward the U.S. Here are some of the central members of the regime:
And if the government’s current structure holds, people briefed on the intelligence told The Times, Khamenei’s theocratic replacement may have similarly hard-line views. He was 86 years old, and the body of clerics who select a new supreme leader has had time to consider his successor. Until a successor is named, a three-person council comprising Iran’s president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist will be in charge, according to Iran’s state news agency. Times reporters explain why it will be hard to know what comes next. In Iran
Crowds have been filling Iran’s streets. People crying, waving Iranian flags and holding photos of Khamenei have gathered in city squares, Iran’s state news agency reported. The state television broadcast melancholic verses from the Quran, and the country announced 40 days of official mourning and a seven-day national holiday to commemorate Khamenei’s death. But others have celebrated. In Tehran, people danced and honked car horns. Fireworks lit up the sky, and loud Persian dance music filled the streets. In cities across the country, residents cheered from their windows and balconies. Some chanted, “Freedom, freedom.” Many Iranians, though, are trying to flee to find safety. In Washington
As with his earlier military interventions in Iran and Venezuela, Trump sent U.S. forces into this weekend’s battle without seeking approval from Congress. (Though, lawmakers noted, he did at least inform some of them beforehand this time.) The campaign reopened the debate about who rightfully wields war powers in American democracy, writes Charlie Savage, who covers national security law. Congress will likely weigh the question this week under the War Powers Resolution, which limits what the president can do without the approval of lawmakers. This year has meant a major turnabout for the president. Trump ran for office as an opponent of military adventurism. He said “regime change is a proven, absolute failure” and promised to “stop racing to topple foreign regimes,” writes Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent. Now the self-declared “president of peace” has attacked Iran with the explicit goal of toppling its government. It is the eighth time he has ordered the military into action in his second term. Justifications and legalityThe Trump administration has given several rationales for its campaign to topple Iran’s government. The president said that:
The Trump administration also made false or unproven claims to justify the campaign. It has said, for instance, that:
For those reasons, writes David Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent, the operation this weekend was “the ultimate war of choice.” Ask The Morning: Send us your questions about the Iran campaign here. For more
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