Former US ambassador to Israel: ‘Trump is going to try to kill the Supreme Leader’

Dan Shapiro, who served as the American ambassador to Israel under former US president Barack Obama, predicts that US President Trump will attempt to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the coming week.

The prediction comes after Khamenei blames Trump for violence during the mass anti-government protests that spread across Iran in recent weeks, and after Trump says in an interview that Iran needs new leadership and that Khamenei, 86, is a “sick man.”

“Trump’s comments to [Politico] on needing new leadership in Iran, and Khamenei’s mindless baiting of Trump on X, lead me to believe that Trump is going to try to kill the Supreme Leader this week,” Shapiro writes on X. “There will soon be a US carrier strike group in the Middle East, making it easier for the US to carry out extensive strikes in Iran and be prepared to defend against Iranian response strikes.”

Shapiro writes that the US could also carry out other strikes on Iranian forces. The strikes, he says, “would allow Trump to say he is keeping faith with Iranian protesters he encouraged, and fulfilling his threat to make the regime pay for massacring them.” Thousands have been reported killed in the protests.

But he cautions that killing Khamenei “is a long way from achieving regime change in Iran.”

Hw writes, “Khamenei’s elimination, if it occurs, would most likely be followed initially by an [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] takeover, and a still aggressive and repressive regime. The change of regime, when it takes place, will be authored by the Iranian people. Supporting them in their quest for freedom will require sustained focus, and largely non-kinetic measures. It will not be achieved by a one-and-done strike.”

Shapiro served as US ambassador to Israel from 2011 to the end of Obama’s presidency in early 2017. He later served in a few Middle East-related roles in the administration of former US president Joe Biden.