A week after Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran aiming to wipe out its nuclear program, all eyes are now on the country’s reclusive supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On Thursday, following an Iranian missile strike that hit an Israeli hospital, Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that “Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes,” adding during a visit to one of the impact sites that “a person like that should not exist,” later calling him “the modern day Hitler,” according to the Times of Israel.
Over decades of rule, Khamenei has built an impenetrable circle around him both inside and outside of Iran. Now, with Israel taking out some of his closest aides and senior security figures, as well as significantly weakening its militant Islamic allies across the region, the supreme leader is beginning to look increasingly isolated.
“He calls himself a revolutionary, not a diplomat,” Dr. Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer in Iran Studies at Reichman University near Tel Aviv who grew up in Tehran, told Fox News Digital, adding that he sees himself as a “revolutionary.”
On Wednesday, that militancy and determination to stay in power came through in statements by Khamenei, who said the “Iranian nation will not surrender” and “war will be met with war, bombing with bombing, and strike with strike,” according to local media reports.
This is an excerpt from an article by Ruth Mark Eglash
