President Donald Trump would be unwise to kill Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At least not as a first step in his anticipated upcoming military action.
This is not to say that Trump should entirely avoid striking Iran. Trump has thus far failed to enforce his red line against Iran’s slaughter of more than 10,000 of its own people during recent protests. If he does not order a punitive response to these atrocities, other adversaries will test Trump’s future redlines as malleable rhetoric within an otherwise unpredictable foreign policy. But military action is now probable. Referencing the arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, Trump also warned Iran this week to “negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS … Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!”
Iran is not going to suspend all nuclear enrichment activities. But Trump is likely banking on the Islamic Republic’s deep economic crisis to restrain it from major retaliation if he orders new strikes specifically targeting its nuclear program. He is probably correct. Military action is likely, though not assured, between Saturday and early next week. Again, however, U.S. action should avoid Khamenei. The obvious risks of targeting Khamenei significantly outweigh the theoretical benefits of doing so.
Some conservative commentators argue otherwise. Fox News’s Mark Levin has been pushing hard for Trump to eliminate Khamenei and his inner circle.
It is certainly true that Iran is an ardent American enemy. The regime has the blood of hundreds of Americans on its hands. Iran carried out numerous brutal attacks during the war in Iraq and the early 1980s U.S. Marine deployment to Lebanon. It blew up a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996. It has actively plotted mass casualty attacks, such as the 2011 Café Milano bomb plot that would have killed dozens of civilians. Its threat cannot be ignored. Still, killing Khamenei would very likely eliminate any prospect of a contained U.S. military action.
That’s because Khamenei holds a perceived ordained role in the Iranian political system. Iran’s political structure is governed by the Khomeinist interpretation of Twelver Shia Islam. In short, Khamenei is regarded as a regent or guardian presiding over the faithful until the Mahdi, an Imam servant of the Prophet Muhammad, currently hidden from human eyes, returns to govern the Earth. Iranian regime hard-liners, and there are many of them, perceive Khamenei not just as a leader but as a servant of God on Earth.
Were the U.S. to eliminate Khamenei, it would thus precipitate an already hyper-paranoid regime to enter a perceived existential crisis. Perhaps Khamenei’s death would cause mass protests alongside mass defections by the security forces. If so, eliminating Khamenei would prove to be a wise course of action. Unfortunately, this is highly unlikely. The recent protests were widespread and related to concerns about collapsing living standards shared by many in the security forces. Yet, we did not see even a minimal organized defection by security forces.
On the flip side, Iran’s retaliation wouldn’t simply be entirely unpredictable in these circumstances, but perhaps also utterly irrational. It would also likely be led by Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who is close to the most hard-liner regime elements.
As I’ve noted in relation to Iran’s incessant plots to assassinate Trump and other figures it blames for the Jan. 2020 strike on Qassem Soleimani, there is a “martyrdom-vengeance fetish that sits at the heart of Iran’s governing Khomeinist ideology. … [Iran] believes it has a blood obligation, one imbued with theological grounding, to kill Americans in order to avenge Soleimani.” Iranian leaders know full well, for example, that killing Trump would lead to a major war they would lose. But they persist in these plots because they believe that to do otherwise would be to betray their holy revolution and thus their raison d’être.
Killing Khamenei would make the killing of Soleimani look like only a slightly unfriendly joke in comparison. It would precipitate far more aggressive retaliation than that which we saw following last June’s U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear program. This retaliation would very likely include a full deployment of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, which, though diminished by last year’s action, remain potent. The Houthi rebels in Yemen would recommence large-scale attacks on international and U.S. shipping in the Red Sea. Even Hezbollah, greatly depleted by Israeli military action, would feel obliged to take up arms. Iran would likely also attempt to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring. And it would seek to carry out rapid and successive terrorist attacks against U.S. and allied interests globally.
Yes, the U.S. would ultimately defeat these Iranian efforts. But that process would carry significant risks and uncertain timelines. It would also manifestly drain U.S. military readiness and critical munition stocks that are already in woefully insufficient supply for any war with China over Taiwan. And there would be no certainty that the Islamic Republic would collapse.
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The U.S. can afford to manage Iran as it is currently doing with whack-a-mole ripostes to Iranian aggression, degradations to its nuclear program, and heavy economic pressure. But an intense, drawn-out conflict with Iran would come with heavy, unpredictable risks while degrading U.S. military readiness. It would not be in America’s interest.
In 2026, U.S. policy must always require a calculation as to how a policy action might affect American prospects in a war with China. Because if China seizes Taiwan, the consequences for the U.S. would be catastrophic.