With Ayatollah Khamenei now gone, if Israel and Trump thought Iran would roll over they have no idea what's coming next. Right, so Ayatollah Khamenei’s dead. And that’s not just another incident in a region that’s been burning for decades. It’s the break of a long-standing, carefully maintained fiction: that the Gulf can host US power projection and still remain a neutral, insulated commercial space. It’s not just that the leader is gone, it’s what follows next. And what follows next? A massive escalation. Iran isn’t going to turn the other cheek, nor are they like Venezuela in that they’ll apparently roll over. That’s no how this works, that’s not the mindset, for all the decades of Western and Zionist occupation and presence in the Middle East, they remain as utterly clueless as ever about the people of the region. With their leader gone, all bets are off, the gates of hell have now been opened and how much of the region will now end up burned in the process is anyone’s guess. The entire structure shifts in real time, right in front of our eyes now. You thought you could keep it isolated, didn’t you? You thought Iran would just fold in on itself, be broken by some bomb, some missile, some airstrike. The people would rise up against their government after you take out the Supreme Leader. The West assumed that killing a leader like Ali Khamenei would collapse the entire system. They thought it was a decapitation strike, and the system would just stop moving. But here’s the thing: Iran’s system doesn’t freeze. It hardens. In one of the most remarkable political acts, the Iranian government invokes Article 111 of its own constitution, forming a leadership council to carry on the fight. And suddenly, the enemy is faced with a new problem: they’ve killed the figurehead, but the engine? It very much keeps running. Now, you’re seeing the consequences of that reality. But let’s break it down. From the moment Khamenei was killed in that joint US-Israeli strike, the Iranian people, the Iranian military, the leadership, they all see this for what it is: a direct attack. And they’ll make sure it’s paid for. Khamenei being taken out is the Shia equivalent of assassinating the Pope.