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Schrödinger's Despot: Is the Ayatollah Khamenei Dead?

Aaron Walker
Aaron Walker  |  12:10 PM on February 28, 2026

This is a breaking story, so the 24-hour rule applies: All reports within the first 24 hours are suspect. But we will strive to give you the most accurate information.

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Folks, we are thick in what is known as the ‘fog of war’ as America and Israel attacks Iran, where it is hard to know exactly what is happening. It’s not like as if Twitchy has a Tehran correspondent who can get information at the scene. We are separated by miles and language barriers. But we are hearing unconfirmed reports that the Ayatollah Khamenei is, um… ‘pining for the fjords.’

(That is Monty Python nerd speak for ‘he’s dead.’)

And there is the more basic problem of proving the negative (as in, he is 'not alive'). If the regime wants to prove he is alive, that’s pretty easy: Just show us a picture with today’s paper, or a video where he makes it clear that we are seeing new footage of him.

But on the other hand, if this strike killed him…

…or a similar strike did, there might literally be nothing left of him. Or there might be so little of him that DNA testing would be the only way to determine if he passed. In that scenario, American and Israeli forces are not likely to have the opportunity to run that kind of DNA analysis for a while, if ever.

Of course, the Ayatollah is not posting on Twitter/X:

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But since his last post was on February 19, that’s not dispositive. 

(On the other hand, if this author didn’t post for more than 24 hours, you’d have to suspect something is really, really wrong.)

And we are hearing he is gone:

For the record, if he was in that house, he might have been relocated to several different places at once, if you know what we mean.

The cut off text:

The assessment is not based on satellite imagery. It is based on human intelligence sources inside the Iranian regime. The same sources that told Israel when the leadership gathering would happen. The same sources that provided the timing for an 8:15 a.m. daylight strike that broke every pattern of every Israeli operation against Iran in history. Israel did not bomb a building and hope. Israel struck a specific room at a specific time because someone inside that room’s security perimeter told them exactly when to strike.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded with five words: ‘still alive as far as I know.’ That is not a denial. That is a man who does not have contact with his own Supreme Leader and is hedging in real time on live television. A foreign minister with confirmed communication to his head of state says ‘he is alive.’ A foreign minister who has lost contact says ‘as far as I know.’

Israel has also announced that a promised Khamenei speech to the nation, if it airs at all, will have been prerecorded. Think about what that means. Israeli intelligence is confident enough in the assessment to publicly predict that any proof of life will be fabricated. They are not waiting for confirmation. They are preemptively discrediting the denial.

No Iranian state media outlet has shown Khamenei. No IRGC commander has issued a statement confirming contact with the Supreme Leader. No proof-of-life video has surfaced. Iran launched retaliatory missiles at six countries within hours of the strikes. That requires no supreme leader. That requires standing orders and panicked generals. What requires a supreme leader is what comes next: the decision to escalate to total war, activate Hormuz, or negotiate. That decision has no visible author tonight.

Khamenei has ruled Iran for 35 years. He succeeded Khomeini. He built the nuclear program. He funded Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Iraqi militias. He outlasted eight American presidents. The entire architecture of the Islamic Republic, its theology, its military doctrine, its succession protocols, flows through one 86-year-old man who has not been seen or heard from since 8:15 this morning.

If he is alive, one video ends this speculation in seconds.

The silence is the story.

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He ends with a link to substack.

But he is right. As of this writing, we are around twelve hours from the strike. Every minute he doesn’t provide proof of life, is growing evidence that no such proof can be provided.

We believe this is the same channel 12 he was referring to:

All translations (from Hebrew) are by Grok, so be appropriately cautious (we trust AI about as far as we can throw it):

Assessment: A line of senior officials was eliminated in attacks in Iran

Translation:

Assessment in Israel: IRGC Commander - Eliminated

Translation:

Assessment in Israel: Good chance that Ali Shamkhani, advisor to Khamenei and the person in charge of the nuclear program, has been eliminated

@amit_segal

Translation:

Documentation: Joyous cheers from female citizens in Tehran - ‘They struck the leader’s compound’

Translation:

Israeli source: Assessment strengthening - Khomeini has been eliminated

We should note that the same news agency previously shared claims that he had been evacuated to a bunker:

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Translation:

Reuters report: Khamenei was evacuated from Tehran and transferred to a secure compound

@asafroz15

But it wouldn’t be hard for both claims to be true. As in, they evacuated him to a compound, and then Israel or America proved that maybe the compound wasn’t so secure. Or perhaps he was wounded when evacuated and succumbed to his injuries at the compound. Who knows?

The cut off text:

Key implications:

• Immediate succession crisis inside Iran

• IRGC power struggle

• Proxy retaliation across the region

• Oil shock risk

• Strait of Hormuz volatility

• Hezbollah activation probability

• Russia & China forced into rapid recalibration

Regime leadership removal is not a headline cycle.

It’s a geopolitical earthquake.

What do you expect next?

He does that irritating thing where he shares a picture of an article without a link, but we found the original:

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And not to spoil anything, but it is the same Channel 12 reporting this. So, it’s not new information.

For what it is worth, the regime is telling NBC that the Ayatollah is alive:

But talk is cheap, especially in repressive regimes:

So is he alive? Or is he an ex-Ayatollah, in Monty Python terms? We don’t pretend to know for sure one way or the other. All we can say is we hope the regime falls, somehow, and the Iranian people are freed. 

UPDATE: Thanks to Ed Driscoll at Instapundit for inspiring the new title.

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