TEHRAN – Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei long regarded security as the most valuable asset a nation could possess. When he became Iran’s Leader in 1989, the country was emerging from one of the most devastating periods in its modern history.

Less than two years earlier, Iranian forces had succeeded in pushing Iraqi troops out of their territory, ending a war that had lasted eight years and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Iran had preserved its sovereignty, but the cost had been staggering. Facing an Iraqi army supported by major global powers and armed with far superior military equipment, Iranians had relied on endurance and sacrifice to prevent the collapse of their nation.

The lessons of that war left a deep imprint on the thinking of the new Leader. For Ayatollah Khamenei, the priority in the years that followed was to ensure that Iran would never again face such a threat without the means to respond. Building a security architecture capable of protecting not only Iran’s borders but also its broader strategic environment became central to the country’s policies.

Over the decades that followed, events across West Asia reinforced that outlook. Several of Iran’s neighbors were destabilized or occupied in conflicts involving the United States and its allies. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded. Libya collapsed after foreign intervention. Syria descended into a long and destructive civil war. For Tehran, these events demonstrated the vulnerability of states that lacked the capacity to deter outside pressure.

Iran pursued a different path. Despite heavy sanctions, it invested heavily in developing domestic military industries. Its missile and drone programs expanded rapidly, eventually becoming among the most advanced in the world. At the same time, Tehran cultivated important alliances and partnerships beyond its borders, most notably in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. The network became known as a “forward defense,” designed to prevent threats from reaching Iranian soil.

Ayatollah Khamenei played a central role in shaping this strategy, but his outlook was not unique within Iran. The ideas he emphasized drew on broader currents within Iranian political culture. For many Iranians, the story of Karbala — a central narrative in Shiite Islam that emphasizes resistance in the face of overwhelming odds — provided a framework for national endurance. Others who were less religious, viewed the same policies through a historical lens, recalling centuries during which Iran had faced invasion, territorial loss and foreign intervention. For both groups, the concept of resistance and independence carried powerful resonance.

This context, however, was largely absent from the calculations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Feb. 28, 2026, their regimes carried out a strike on the office of Ayatollah Khamenei in central Tehran. The attack was intended to eliminate the country’s Leader and cripple the system he had spent decades shaping.

In Washington and Tel Aviv, decision-makers believed that assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei would trigger the collapse of the Islamic Republic or leave it too weakened to mount a meaningful response, analysts say. The expectation was that the country’s political structure depended heavily on a single figure and would struggle to survive his absence.

Events unfolded differently. Within hours of the opening strikes, the Iranian Armed Forces launched heavy retaliatory attacks on U.S. bases in the region as well as targets in Israel. Instead of the domestic unrest that Trump and Netanyahu had anticipated, large crowds gathered in cities across Iran. Demonstrators filled public squares, waving national flags and expressing support for the political system.

When it became clear that the Islamic Republic was not going to collapse through illegal and deadly airstrikes, Trump signaled that Washington still intended to play a role in shaping Iran’s political future. In interviews with American media, he shamelessly suggested that the United States should be “involved” in determining who would succeed Ayatollah Khamenei. He also identified one potential candidate as "unacceptable" to Washington: Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Leader.

Trump’s opposition to Mojtaba Khamenei had been evident years earlier. In 2019, the United States imposed sanctions on him under Executive Order 13867. At the time, the U.S. Treasury Department said he had been “representing the supreme leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the office of his father.” The designation placed him among a group of senior Iranian figures targeted by American sanctions.

But in Iran, political authority does not formally pass through inheritance. The country’s constitution assigns the selection of a Leader to the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member clerical body whose members are themselves elected by popular vote. In the early hours of Monday morning, that assembly announced its decision: Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei would become the third Leader of the Islamic Republic.

The announcement set off scenes of celebration in several Iranian cities. By midday, crowds had gathered in public squares and along major avenues, chanting slogans and waving portraits of both the martyred and the new Leader. As evening approached, chants echoed through the streets: “Khamenei is young again,” some shouted. Others proclaimed, “Khamenei is still here.”

Officials who pledged allegiance to the new Leader described the transition as a continuation rather than a break. Many pointed out that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, had long worked closely with his father and was familiar with the strategic direction established over the past four decades. They expressed confidence that the policies of the “path of resistance” would continue under his leadership.

Officials also saw the moment as one of renewal. A younger Leader with the same ideals of the martyred Ayatollah Khamenei, they said, would guide the country through a new phase of regional and global challenges. In speeches broadcast on Iranian television, they spoke of hopes that the new era would open horizons the country had not previously reached.

For Trump, the outcome represented a starkly different reality from the one some had predicted at the start of the war. Instead of dismantling Iran’s political system, his illegal campaign had resulted in the emergence of another Leader bearing the same name and closely associated with the same strategic outlook. 

Trump’s war of choice has carried heavy costs while failing to achieve its intended goals. American bases across the region got decimated, and U.S. personnel were killed or wounded. The aggression also intensified anti-American sentiment among many Iranians, including those who had previously criticized their own government.

In the end, the attempt to reshape Iran’s leadership produced an outcome few in Washington had anticipated. Rather than weakening the system built over decades, the crisis appeared — at least for now — to reinforce the narrative of resistance that has long stood at the center of the Islamic Republic’s political identity. For many Iranians, the message was clear: pressure from abroad had not broken the country’s will, but had instead strengthened its determination to confront foreign domination.