The Other McCain

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‘Major Combat Operations’ in Iran UPDATE: Is the Ayatollah Dead, or Not? UPDATE: He’s ‘Pining for the Fjords’

Posted on | February 28, 2026 | No Comments

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

UPDATE 5:10 p.m. ET: The Associated Press:

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the United States, Israeli officials told The Associated Press on Saturday. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. or Iran on his status.

The old Monty Python parrot sketch reference via Aaron Walker at Twitchy. It is elsewhere reported that pretty much the entire military leadership of the Tehran regime has been eliminated and, if indeed the Ayatollah himself has now shuffled off this mortal coil, the Islamic Republic is done, finished, kaput. War is over, we win.

We do not know what comes next, of course, but the Left’s predictable noise about a long war in Iran appears to be immediately void. In a one-day lightning strike, the U.S. and Israel have destroyed the Shiite theocracy, and whatever happens now, the future in Iran will be different.

But the protesters already had their signs printed!

 

* * * PREVIOUSLY (8:36 a.m. ET) * * *

A couple of weeks ago, it was noticed that roughly one-third of the U.S. Navy was within striking range of Iran, at a time when Iran was “negotiating” over their nuclear program with the Trump administration. One must put “negotiating” in quotation marks, because Donald Trump clearly had in mind a specific outcome — the elimination of Iran’s nuclear threat — and the Iranians did not seem to understand the consequences of not giving Trump what he wanted. That was the fuck around stage of the process, and we have now reached the find out stage:

The US and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran Saturday morning in response to the regime’s refusal to dismantle its nuclear program after weeks of negotiations — targeting military infrastructure and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound in Tehran.
The attacks — which the Department of War called “Operation Epic Fury” — follow a massive US military buildup in the Middle East and come after President Trump repeatedly warned Tehran that it would face consequences if it didn’t make a deal with the US.
Iran then launched missiles towards Israel in a retaliatory attack as officials claimed the response would be “crushing.”
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” Trump said in an eight-minute video address on Saturday.

In addition to the expected outcries from Democrats, who are not just anti-Trump but objectively pro-Iran, this event will trouble many of Trump’s most loyal supporters, whose ideas of an “America First” foreign policy certainly do no include a joint U.S.-Israeli strike against Tehran. What Trump is doing now is very much the kind of thing neoconservatives have advocated for many years, and yet the most prominent neocons have been anti-Trump since 2015. In other words, Trump is disappointing many of his friends by doing what should please many of his enemies. My own concern is for the U.S. troops involved, wishing them success, decisive victory being the shortest route to peace.

UPDATE 12:55 p.m. ET: So you were promised updates and updates ye shall have, but confirmed facts are unfortunately scarce:

Initial indications from intel sources are that Ali Khamenei has at least been hit in the attack, and that the IRGC’s top commander has been killed. The Times of Israel followed up on a report from KAN:

Israel “assesses” that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was likely killed in an Israeli strike earlier today, Channel 12 says, citing unnamed Israeli sources. It says there are “growing indications” to this effect.
There is no official confirmation of the report.
The TV station had minutes earlier said the Israeli assessment was that Khamenei was “hurt at the very least, ” and that this was not an assessment based on satellite imagery showing Khamenei’s presidential compound being flattened, but rather on information from unnamed sources.

The Jerusalem Post corroborates that report, albeit with a bit more caution:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been cut off from contact, and there is no certainty about his fate, Israeli officials told Walla on Saturday afternoon. Iranian officials promised to release a recording from Khamenei soon after Israeli strikes targeted his Tehran compound.
The preliminary assessment among Israeli officials was that Khamenei was hurt in the strike. No official confirmation has been received by Israeli, American, or Iranian sources. …
Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh and Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammed Pakpour are believed to have been killed in Israeli attacks, two sources familiar with Israel’s military operations and one regional source said.
Israeli and Iranian sources said earlier on Saturday strikes on Iran killed several senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and Islamic Regime political officials.

Unless and until we see a mob of enraged Iranian civilians dragging the Ayatollah’s corpse through the streets of Tehran, we’re unlikely to have actual confirmation. What we can confirm, however, is that a lot of Democrats are busy making jackasses of themselves.

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Category: Donald Trump, Iran, Israel, Military

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