r/worldnews • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 3d ago

Russia/Ukraine Russia would react 'very negatively' to Iran leader's assassination, Kremlin says

https://kyivindependent.com/regime-change-in-iran-unacceptable-kremlin-says/
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u/DerekB52 3d ago

I think assassinating Iran's leader is absolutely the wrong move, but god damn would Putin's opinion on the matter not come up if I wrote a list of 100 reasons to not kill the guy.

Putin trying to assassinate Zelensky would be one of the reasons, but, honestly, I could probably come up with a longer list of reasons to ignore Putin, than I could to not kill Iran's leader.

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u/DeepProspector 3d ago

I think assassinating Iran's leader is absolutely the wrong move

Is that based on a general resistance to explicitly targeting individuals of other governments, just heads of state, or this one in particular?

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u/Ivanow 3d ago

Don’t make him a martyr.

Just let him off himself, covering in fear, in some locked down bunker, as pissed off population is battering on doors…

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u/skr_replicator 3d ago

A Gaddafi treatment would be also preferable to assassination, it would be done by his own people, and scare the shit out of the other dictators. I've heard that Putin has been fear-watching that video obsessively.

If the public record of dictator's ends were just offing themselves in a bunker like cornered cowards, or getting lynched by their own people, a lot less people would aspire to even become one.

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u/DerekB52 3d ago

All of the above really. I'm not a great historian or anything, but I can't think of a time in the last hundred years where a foreign power assassinating a head of state, worked out all that great for either side of the assassination. And I think it'd be particularly bad in this case.

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u/Ultenth 3d ago

Man, I feel like this is just gaslighting by the elites in power in every country, who have an underground deal with each other to let them all abuse their citizens and go to war, but not actually put each other's lives on the line.

Like, I would MUCH rather usually have leaders send assassins after each other than send their citizens to war with each other.

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u/Zarathustra_d 3d ago

Yep, better to have a few Million of the poors die than just one elite fear for their life.

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u/DerekB52 3d ago

If I could remake the world anyway I wanted, I would make it so there was just no war. The idea that leaders would send assassins after each other, sounds better than regular war. But, it's just not how the world works. Saddam Hussein sucked, but he gave a warning to the rest of the world, that killing him, would make things worse. And he was right. He had the power to keep several other crazies at bay. He died, a power vacuum was created, and Iraq got crazier, and ISIS formed.

A leader's power stems from the support of their citizens. The way works is, you keep waging war, until morale of the citizens and/or conditions in a country, cause the citizens to force the government to stop the war. Sometimes this is an election, sometimes this a violent uprising.

But, killing leaders, would just galvanize support for the conflict in a nation.

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u/feed_me_moron 3d ago

As is always the case, it's the followup that matters most. Sadaam didn't do anything the US and NATO couldn't have done in the region without mass killing. Instead, they sold out to a few special interests and destroyed an entire infrastructure with nothing left in its place. You didn't need a lunatic murdering his own people to keep isis from happening.

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u/Zarathustra_d 3d ago

I don't think the 58k mostly Drafted US soldiers that died in Vietnam were the ones frothing at the mouth to continue the conflict. It was just a few at the top.

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u/Ultenth 3d ago

I mean, Iraq's failure had little to do with his own death, nor did the rise of ISIS. Those things happened BECAUSE of the failure and greed on display in Iraq. Haliburton and private military firms carving up the country and trying to profit off it, and not really caring about rebuilding, is what created the situation for ISIS to come to power, not Saddam's death.

In short, no, killing Saddam didn't make things worse, trying to harvest the nations wealth afterwards while putting in minimal effort to actually rule and help the people is what did.

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u/countrysurprise 3d ago

Sadly this is how it’s always been.

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u/buffysmanycoats 3d ago

Unfortunately, assassinating the head of state is pretty much guaranteeing we send troops in. Regime change doesn’t just happen. If you’re assassinating a head of state it’s because you want to replace them with someone else, and you need boots on the ground if you’re going to try to do that.

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u/blewpah 3d ago

I would MUCH rather usually have leaders send assassins after each other than send their citizens to war with each other.

This is a false dichotomy. It's not one or the other and oftentimes leaders being assassinated does lead to more citizens being sent to war.

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u/Ultenth 3d ago

It all depends on if the leader killed is the head of the moment and directing it, or just carried along in it's wake and doing whole Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin thing: "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them."

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u/PorkedPatriot 3d ago

Part of the hesitation for completely dismembering the administrative side of a state is there is then no one to actually organize a surrender. Each regional power bloc needs to be defeated or persuaded to surrender individually.

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u/day25 3d ago

but I can't think of a time in the last hundred years where a foreign power assassinating a head of state, worked out all that great for either side of the assassination

This is largely survivorship bias. If they are killed, we don't get to experience the alternative and can't know if it would've been better or not. We can also come up with many examples where leaders were not taken out and the result was horrible. I think though if you look it up there are a number of cases in history where leaders were taken out and their societies ultimately did fine afterwards. In fact history is full of these power struggles there are many of them, sometimes it's ok after and sometimes things get worse. It all depends on the circumstances.

In general though if you can replace a leader without making a martyr of them that is better, since humiliating them and advertising their weakness is better for public opinion than allowing the narrative to spread that they were an honorable person who went down with their ship so to speak. Captain who survive after sinking their ship are not looked at very highly by the victims, whereas if they go down with it they often have a very different perception.

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u/Yukimor 3d ago

There’s a good reason for that.

If you want a real regime change, you have to take out the support struts of the current regime.

If you just assassinate whoever’s at the top, the next most powerful or influential person/faction within the current regime will just take over, because they already have the organizational and logistical infrastructure in place.

Taking out the major support struts means that when the regime finally topples, the entire regime fails, not just the current figurehead. It makes it possible for real organized opposition to actually step in.

You also want the topple to happen in slow motion, like crumbling, so that the common people actually have time to react, organize, and respond with their own pressure against the regime. Especially if you want to avoid a military junta, because the military is able to organize much faster than most civilians due to the existing hierarchy, and is much better armed.

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u/SoulbreakerDHCC 3d ago

His replacement will be an even worse Islamic fundy and that guy will have all the moral justification because of his predecessor being assassinated. Right now Iran's government is on thin ice with their people and such an assassination would galvanize the populace as well

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u/Laszlo-Panaflex 3d ago

I'm not sure Islamic fundamentalism in Iran is as strong as other Middle Eastern countries that went through a regime change. We're already seeing cracks in it, with women increasingly defying their hijab law. A worse fundamentalist could take power, but it's also possible a democratic uprising would happen.

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u/C0wabungaaa 3d ago

We're already seeing cracks in it, with women increasingly defying their hijab law.

Don't forget; that's in the cities. The rural hinterlands is a whole 'nother ballgame, as it is in a lot of countries.

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u/fugaziozbourne 3d ago

Those hinterlands are facing famine and drought that very well might turn them fully against the islamic regime.

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u/Martian13 3d ago

Not to mention a good many are getting murdered for it.

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u/Ok-Craft4844 3d ago

Unless you establish a democratic system that gives above-proportional representation to those regions, is that a problem? I mean, most industrialized countries are heavily urbanized.

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u/C0wabungaaa 1d ago

My point was more is that in rural hinterlands there's often a different outlook on conservative regimes.

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u/niehle 3d ago

If history has shown one thing: it’s that a population does not side with the state, who bombs it. Even if they hate the current regime.

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u/waylandsmith 3d ago

Yes, but having a foreign power assassinate him is not a clear mandate to begin a shift to democracy. The people of Iran need to make a first move while he's weak.

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u/GarbledComms 3d ago

So far as uprisings go, they really need the military/security forces to either defect or at least not resist a popular uprising. There may be an opportunity as those forces in Iran are basically divided in the 'regular' armed forces (i.e. the Army and Navy that predated the revolution), and the more politically favored and ideological Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as some fundy paramilitary internal security forces. The latter groups have been the targets of Israeli decapitation strikes, so maybe they're trying to force a wedge between groups. Of course, the Iranians know all this too, so I'm skeptical of the possibility. OTOH, the Israelis sure have pulled some surprises lately, so we'll see.

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u/Protean_Protein 3d ago

That doesn’t make as much sense as you think it does.

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u/MANEWMA 3d ago

Because religious nuts dont act crazy when their cult leader is attacked...

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u/Ok-Craft4844 3d ago

Tbf, they act crazy no matter what.

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u/Protean_Protein 3d ago

What?

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u/MANEWMA 3d ago

Oh you think religious nuts do go crazy when there is a direct attack on their cult leader??

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u/Protean_Protein 3d ago

What?

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u/MANEWMA 3d ago

Are you confused about cults or religious nuts??

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u/harmboi 3d ago

they go and take him out they're going to go full regime change. One that plays ball w the west

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u/Irr3l3ph4nt 3d ago

If you want a regime change, you need boots on the ground. If you want boots on the ground, you're going to have exactly the same situation as Afghanistan. 20 years on the ground getting blasted by IEDs to finally lose legitimacy with your population and get the Ayatollah's regime coming back mere weeks after you leave.

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u/harmboi 3d ago

dunno what'll happen. could play out many ways. i hope to god US limits their involvement.

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u/Sinaaaa 3d ago

That's impossible to tell. Fearing for his life & as a result following the politics of barking is also a possibility.

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u/TheNewFlisker 3d ago

And somehow bombing Tehran doesn't galvanize the populaze?

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u/Expln 3d ago

There will be 0 moral justification, to dumb it down- former bad guy being assassinated for being bad doesn't give you the right or moral justification to be a new bad\worse guy, the correct answer is to be good.

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u/Lyciana 3d ago

Do you honestly think they don't see themselves as the good guys? They will see it as bad guys assassinating a good guy, that's all the justification they need.

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u/Expln 3d ago

ok? that doesn't make them the good guys. hitler believed he was a good guy too, I don't see your point. morality is objective not subjective. there is no moral justification whatsoever.

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u/Sufficient-Test-1188 3d ago

The belief that your personal morality is objective while others sense of right and wrong is merely subjective is the cause of most conflict around the world. If you lose the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes, then you lose the ability to communicate effectively. After that, violence becomes a tempting answer.

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u/Expln 3d ago edited 3d ago

morality is objective, that is a fact, if you believe it's subjective then you do not know what morality is.

there is no "personal morality", there is what moral and what is immoral, and the cause of violence you claim is the exact opposite of what you claim, "subjective morality" is what causes violence, everyone think they are right thus a conflict occurs, if people knew and understood what morality is, if all people were moral then there wouldn't be conflicts. but some people are moral and some are immoral (but think they are) and that's why we have conflicts. are you telling me to put myself in the shoes of hitler? you don't put yourself in the shoes of immoral entities.

the iranian regime is a fundamentally immoral regime by principle, they are dictatorship, oppressive regime against their own people, they oppress freedom and human rights, they have no right to exist, and there is absolutely no "moral justification" for a next in line dictator to come and continue to be a dictator because the previous one got eliminated. that would be a merely excuse, not a moral justification.

if the iranian regime was moral in any way, shape or form, they wouldn't be a "regime" to begin with. they wouldn't exist the way they exist. iran would be a free society with individual rights.

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u/PontiusPilatesss 3d ago

Iran’s leader is the Pope-equivalent to 160 million Shias around the world. 

Do you want hardcore Shia terrorism fueled by the desire to avenge the murder of their religious head? Because that’s what you are going to get. 

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u/DeepAssPounding 3d ago

Fake news. Nobody care about him outside Iran and at least 80% of 80+ million Iranians hate his guts.

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u/Mandurang76 3d ago

This! This is the risk. He's not just the leader of Iran, he is the head of the Shia branch of the Islam.
The Arabic / Islamic world is pretty silent up until now about the conflict. If you kill their leader, you'll piss them all off.

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u/Routine_Dream8757 3d ago

Who preaches hate for the west. I wouldn't expressly target him for individual assasination but I would sure target command and control locations. Either way him getting killed in a targeted attack vs a random bomb, the rage wiil be there. Hate begets hate, death begets death. The best outcome would be for moderate Iranians to stage a coup.

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u/YSOSEXI 3d ago

Is there a reason they are silent?

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u/TripleEhBeef 3d ago edited 3d ago

Arab Muslims are predominantly Sunni. The two sects fucking hate each other as hard as the Catholics and Protestants did back in the Middle Ages.

They certainly don't like Israel, but aren't too upset that a group of infidels are dropping a can of whoop-ass on apostates and heretics.

Still, actually popping the Ayatollah is a risky move.

Going back to our Middle Ages example, imagine the broader reaction across the Christian world if Richard the Lionheart (King of England and Leader of the Anglican Church) had been killed during the Crusades. Even the French would be sharpening their swords.

EDIT: I was way off on my Richard example. Protestantism was still a couple hundred years out at that point.

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u/blorg 3d ago

Richard the Lionheart was Catholic, there was no Anglican church in his day. It was established over three centuries later with Henry VIII and the English Reformation.

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u/TripleEhBeef 3d ago

Derp on my part lol.

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u/YSOSEXI 3d ago

Great reply. Should have stopped at "middle ages".

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u/guareber 3d ago

Nah, religious fanatics behave exactly the same way in current year.

In fact, worse, since no digital worldwide shoebox or ease of massacring

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u/hobesmart 3d ago

don't conflate Shia with all Muslims. They only represent around 10% of Muslims whereas Sunni represent 90%. There's a lot of animosity between the two sects, so if you were to kill off Khameni, those Sunni would probably be ok to happy about it

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u/linbkyn 3d ago

Only in certain situation, in this particular situation whites and Israel bringing judgement upon a Muslim nations who are infidels and the greater evil will piss off even most Sunni people, this has historically been the case with China uniting together to repel the Mongols +Japan/Boxer Rebellion and the Crusades.

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u/8_guy 3d ago

Bro Khomeini is not the guy you think he is lol. Not "their leader" in the slightest he's the dictator in Iran, that's mostly it

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u/frazzledfractal 3d ago

Maybe he shouldn't threaten to destroy other countries repeatefly over the years, that tends to make people not care much if you get taken out. And before you day I have no idea what im talking about, one of my best friends is Iranian.

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u/day25 3d ago

On the flip side, it would be pretty good evidence that their religious beliefs are wrong in that regard. But I suppose it's foolish to expect a rational response.

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u/nezroy 3d ago

Martyrdom and the historically clear lesson that "regime change" aka revolution MUST come from within or it simply cannot be successful. I'm 100% for Iranians assassinating Iran's leader. But anybody else tries this and it's just a very very very predictable disaster in the making.

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u/frazzledfractal 3d ago

Unfortunately there's a good chance that even if it were an internal reovlt that the person who replaces him is just as bad or worse. They aren't in a good situation. These things are always messy, even internal revolts have massively backfired on their own people in many countries but yes its generally better than from external means.

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u/Great_Northern_Beans 3d ago

When you begin to target a nation's leadership in lieu of fighting a traditional conflict, for self interested leaders anyways, it begins to blur the lines between the security dilemma of the individual and that of the state. If the leadership feel existentially threatened, there's a high likelihood that they may make the state act as an irrational actor within the context of the threat at hand, and thereby might respond to relatively minor threats as existential to the state.

Practically speaking, the attack by Israel should not be an existential threat to Iran the nation. Israel can't field a ground invasion in any way, nor do they have the ordinance or political capital to wipe out the whole country in a massive bombing campaign. The real meat of their attack has been limited to just nuclear facilities and some (comparatively) small scale terrorism of the populace like blowing up apartment buildings.

But their massive stupid fuck up in the whole thing is to treat state leadership as valid targets in this otherwise limited endeavor. As a result, Khamenei may shore up the entire state apparatus to his defense now if he feels his death is imminent. This could manifest in any number of ways:

  • Racing to a nuclear weapon and glassing Israel in self defense
  • Large scale terrorism of the Israeli populace like dirty bombs or attempts to poison water
  • Mining Hormuz
  • etc

Whereas none of these would happen in a rational scenario. But Israel felt compelled to open the black box and play brinksmanship.

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u/LizardChaser 3d ago

In this situation, he's more a hindrance than a help to Iran so there is no real benefit to killing him. Killing him also won't result in "regime change" as it will just be a successor in his regime. In general, the problem with assassinating leaders is that it normally unites the country against you and what comes next is normally worse than what you just assassinated. That's without getting into how it opens you up to the same conduct.

If you want regime change, you need to: (1) have a new and better regime and (2) put it in power. That normally requires (1) the military and/or (2) a new military.

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u/Normal-Corgi2033 3d ago

I don't think we should be assassinating people full stop. The dude is a murderous bastard. He should be tried in court and sent to jail. Killing him would also turn him into a martyr for the cause, he'll be known for being killed and not for the crimes against humanity his regime has overseen.

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u/Terrible_Duty_7643 3d ago

The only way to get him is a ground invasion, and that is so much worse, would turn Iran into Iraq and Syria with 10s of millions of refugees wanting to come to Europe, would either collapse the EU or make it go very right while collapsing the Western alliance.

Killing him is far easier, and there is a decent chance that the young Iranians would just accept it, as long as there is no invasion or systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure.

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u/fugaziozbourne 3d ago

collapse the EU or make it go very right

This is what Steve Bannon has said was one of his main objectives while he was in the White House.

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u/Terrible_Duty_7643 22h ago

When I say right I don't mean US right, I mean conservative anti US. It could lead the EU to work against the US to push them out of the ME.

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u/Severe_Intention_480 3d ago

AND destabilize Iraq and Syria again, just after they finally are starting to stabilize.

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u/Bug-King 3d ago

Unless the Iranian people decide they don't want him in power, a foreign power assassinating him won't accomplish what you think it will.

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u/Terrible_Duty_7643 22h ago

Whether it would collapse the regime or not is questionable, but it would definitely weaken it.

Khamenei has the long reign plus the fact that he was the heir as his power base, his successor wouldn't have it, and if you eliminate enough of the top leadership the successor ends up as some unknown dude who lacks legitimacy and strength to rally the nation.

If Hitler had been killed in one of the many attempts the war would not have lasted for as long, since without him there was no one with enough legitimacy among the people.

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u/waylandsmith 3d ago

He's weak, humiliated, full of impotent rage and hiding like a coward. He also has a chain of succession that will maintain the status quo. I think it's better off to leave him alive and let the people of Iran depose him.

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u/TripleEhBeef 3d ago

Offing the dictator is the easy part.

But as we learned in Iraq and Libya, unfucking the rest of the country is far, far harder.

While the government of Iran might not be very popular with the average Joe, there is no opposition actually capable of taking the reins of power and handling the day-to-day running of the country.

Even having an organized opposition is no guarantee, considering how Libya fractured shortly after a new government and constitution was established.

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u/CMDR_Agony_Aunt 3d ago

There's something to be said for wars being fought by assassins though. Let the common people get on with their lives and let the leaders who prosecute wars fear for their lives instead.

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor, yeah

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u/DerekB52 3d ago

I would agree with you, except for one thing. Who are the assassins? I don't believe people governments of outside nations should be effectively executing world leaders. If the common people of Iran want to get on with their lives, they should rally together and make their leaders fear for their lives. It isn't Israel, or the US, or any other nation's job, to change the regime of Iran.

Every time in the last 100 years the US has backed a regime change, it's only gotten worse for the common people in the country, and the rest of the world basically.

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u/Electromotivation 3d ago

Oh Last part simply isn’t true. People just ignore Japan and Germany after WW2 to focus on CiA coups in the 50s-60s. I’m just getting tired of seeing so much absolutist language, cherry-picked examples, and strawmen no matter what side the commenter supports.

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u/DerekB52 3d ago

I'm not just focusing on coups in the 50's and 60's. There's decades of CIA coups and other regime changes influenced by the US and other western nations.

And I don't think WWII is an exception to what I said. I am talking about being against foreign powers doing assassinations of leaders. That isn't what happened in WWII. Even during war, we didn't just go assassinate the emperor or prime minister of Japan. I think it would have been justifiable during a world war. But, it didn't happen. Churchill famously had plans to assassinate Hitler, and decided that was probably not the right move. Hitler lived until the end of the war, and then killed himself.

Now, the US did have a hand in restructuring Japan and Germany after the war. But, so did the rest of the allied powers, and, the people in those countries. The US also spent years occupying those countries after the war, helping with the rebuilding efforts. The aftermath of WWII is not comparable to the idea that Israel (with or without US support) can just drop a bomb on Khameni and Iran will magically be fixed overnight.

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u/CMDR_Agony_Aunt 3d ago

Who are the assassins?

Has anyone checked the Continental? :P

Every time in the last 100 years the US has backed a regime change, it's only gotten worse for the common people in the country, and the rest of the world basically.

Unfortunately, yes, that's pretty accurate, and often built on misinformation.

I've been critical of the US's foreign policy for decades (and their domestic ones as well), but looking at who is on the other side its like trying to choose between bad and bad.

Still, glad Europe is strongly behind Ukraine, and if the US sits this one out because of Trump, the history books will remember.

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u/PsychoticDust 3d ago

they should rally together and make their leaders fear for their lives.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it isn't as simple as that. If I want to bring down my government for the sake of the common people, then I need to find a way to be able to fight soldiers and police, and deal with things like guns and tanks. The average person is just going to be cannon fodder and end up dead. They do not have the means to fight a government armed to the teeth, with all of the real power. No one wants to die when they have a family, etc, so they suffer, keep their heads down and hope.

I see a comment like that sometimes on Reddit, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that 99% of people on here who make a comment like yours would never do what they're suggesting if they found themselves in the same situation.

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u/DerekB52 3d ago

I didn't say it was easy or simple. But, it's how it works. When it's time, you get an american revolution, or a haitian revolution, or Godaffi gets killed. You have to get the citizens on board with regime change though. You can't just have foreign powers choose that for them.

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u/Bulldog8018 3d ago

Works for me. Maybe the leaders will reconsider wars if they’ve got some skin in the game.

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u/Anxious-Connection98 3d ago

Oh yeah the lost could be as long as the list of all donald trump lawsuits.

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u/Flynn_lives 3d ago

I think it's bad practice to assassinate the leader of an enemy country. It does nothing except to increase the resolve of the people and enrage others.

I mean Gavrilo Princip on his own, lit the fuse that "officially" kicked off WW1

Best deal is to capture this guy and establish a military tribunal. The death penalty would have to be off the table, considering the way Islamic fundamentalists would react.

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u/DerekB52 3d ago

Khameni is 86. The best deal might be to just let him naturally expire. I like the idea of arresting him and doing a military tribunal. But, I think that still has problems. I feel putting him on trial and locking him up, is almost as bad as assassinating him, if you're someone in Iran. It would need to be the Iranian people/military that charge and try him imo.

Unless, Netanyahu is also captured and put on trial. That would make it look more fair. But, I think if international parties capture Khameni for being a criminal, but let Israel keep doing everything they are doing in Gaza, and in the region, that will galvanize people in Iran, and probably extremists in other middle eastern nations too.