On the morning of February 28, in the opening blow of the war Israel named Operation Roaring Lion and Washington named Operation Epic Fury, a joint American and Israeli strike hit the leadership compound of Ali Khamenei in central Tehran. Israeli Air Force jets, F-15s among them, had lifted off around dawn, and at roughly nine-forty they brought down some thirty precision munitions and a salvo of air-launched Sparrow missiles on the site.

Khamenei sheltered in a bunker at night, when he expected Israeli attacks, so American intelligence tracked his movements for months, waited for a rare daylight meeting of the Defense Council, and the strike came while he sat above ground.

He was in his offices at a scheduled gathering, at an address everyone knew, far from the shelter built for him beneath the compound, a bunker sunk more than thirty meters into the earth whose elevator alone took over five minutes to reach.

Iran confirmed his death two days later and declared forty days of mourning. Killed with him, according to Iranian and Western reporting, were members of his family, among them his wife, along with the wife and young son of his heir, Mojtaba.

About the son, the story turns uncertain. The regime says he survived his wounds and became Supreme Leader in March, and since then no one beyond a small circle has seen him.  He has not spoken on camera or in a recording. More than four months have passed. Why would a government keep its own leader hidden even from a camera for so long?

No body, and no sighting

Let me start with the weakest part, since honesty about it earns the rest. There is no corpse, no coffin, and no photograph. The regime can argue, reasonably, that a leader whom Israel has vowed to kill has every reason to stay out of view.

A marksman needs no missile, and a single shot would reach him in most open squares. So I grant the point at once: he may be alive and too badly hurt to be shown, missing a leg, scarred, unable to stand. The regime’s own descriptions of his wounds have never settled, running from a few stitches to Western reports of severe facial and leg wounds.

Even so, the fear reveals how the regime sees its own footing. A state secure in the mandate of heaven would not flinch at letting its guardian be glimpsed for a single second. It only opens the question.

The miracle no one claimed

Consider the absence of any video. If Mojtaba lived through a bombardment that killed his father, mother, and wife while leaving him breathing, the regime held a gift it reveres. In the belief of the Islamic........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)