From Dubai: The regional dynamics at play are more complex than the headlines suggest. But the headline itself is staggering: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who held supreme authority over the Islamic Republic of Iran for nearly four decades, is dead. He was killed on Saturday morning in his own compound in the heart of Tehran, struck by Israeli warplanes operating as part of a meticulously planned joint operation with the United States.
According to reporting by 9News and CNN, intelligence agencies including the CIA had been covertly monitoring Khamenei's daily routines, movements and communications for months. The ayatollah, reportedly cautious to the point of near-paranoia, felt less vulnerable during daylight hours and lowered his guard. It has been more than a day since the United States and Israel launched strikes on cities across Iran, which killed the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, alongside several members of his family as well as other powerful Iranian officials. When a surprise change to his movements on Saturday morning placed him, along with most of the senior Iranian security establishment, at sites on the same Tehran compound, the opportunity was seized.
Attack plans originally designed for a night-time assault were adjusted on the fly to a daytime strike. Israeli Air Force chief of staff Eyal Zamir notified pilots the operation was under way before dawn Israel time. The operation was codenamed Roaring Lion by Israel and Operation Epic Fury by the United States Department of Defense, and targeted key officials, military commanders, and facilities. Three separate sites on Khamenei's compound were struck simultaneously. Israel's military said that top Iranian security officials were among those killed, including the country's defence minister, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the secretary of the Iranian Security Council, a close adviser to Khamenei.
President Donald Trump confirmed the supreme leader's death on Truth Social, writing that Khamenei "was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems." Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country's president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties, and will oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.
Months in the Making
The strike did not emerge from a single intelligence windfall. According to 9News reporting, the joint operation had been in preparation for weeks, with a parade of senior Israeli military and intelligence officials, including the head of the Mossad, making visits to Washington to co-ordinate plans. In the weeks before the 2026 attack, Iran and the US had been in indirect nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman, and a second round of nuclear talks had been scheduled to be held in Geneva. The attack was preceded by the largest US military buildup to have occurred in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner conducted three rounds of indirect talks with Tehran, seeking a permanent end to Iran's nuclear enrichment programme. Those talks collapsed at a final Geneva meeting on the Thursday before the strikes, when Tehran declined to accept any proposal for complete dismantlement. The strikes came in the wake of failed talks between Washington and Tehran as Trump pressured Iran to commit to abandoning its pursuit of weapons-grade uranium. A senior US official, cited by 9News, said the administration had offered Iran options for a peaceful nuclear programme, including a proposal to supply nuclear fuel directly, all of which were rejected.
Retaliation and Chaos Across the Gulf
Iran has struck back. In retaliation, Iran launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles throughout the Persian Gulf, targeting Israel as well as US military bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Two airports in the United Arab Emirates reported incidents, with Dubai International Airport officials saying four people were injured, while Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi said one person was killed and seven others were injured in a drone strike.
Writing from Dubai, where the mood shifted in hours from cautious unease to acute anxiety, I can report that the economic and human disruption is immediate. More than 1,800 flights have been cancelled globally, and an Iranian drone strike has hit Dubai Airport as travel chaos erupts across the Middle East, with Qatar Airways suspending flights after the strikes began. The UAE ordered all schools and universities to switch to remote learning. Meanwhile, as news of Khamenei's death spread, Iranians began pouring into the streets in expressions of joy, shock and disbelief, with videos of celebrations circulating from Karaj, Qazvin, Shiraz, Kermanshah, Isfahan, and Sanandaj.
The Energy Stakes
For Australia's energy sector, this signals a period of serious uncertainty. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route through which about 20 million barrels of oil and oil products pass every day, from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, representing about 20 per cent of global oil demand. Iran has reportedly moved to restrict navigation along the world's most critical oil export route, with a European Union naval mission official telling Reuters that vessels in the region are receiving marine radio warnings from Iran's Revolutionary Guard instructing ships not to pass through the strait.
Barclays analysts warned that "oil markets might have to face their worst fears on Monday," saying Brent crude could hit $100 per barrel as the market grapples with the threat of a potential supply disruption amid a spiralling security situation. For Australian households already carrying the burden of cost-of-living pressures, sustained energy price rises of this magnitude would complicate the Reserve Bank's path on interest rates and add fresh strain to family budgets.
Canberra's Calculation
The Albanese government has backed the strikes, a position that reflects both the US alliance and Australia's own bitter recent history with Tehran. Iran directed at least two attacks on Australian soil in 2024, appalling acts targeting Australia's Jewish community that were intended to create fear, divide society and challenge sovereignty, and in response Australia took the unprecedented steps of expelling Iran's ambassador, suspending operations at its embassy in Tehran, and listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The government stated it supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security. Foreign Minister Penny Wong, speaking in Adelaide on Sunday, noted that she could not independently confirm Khamenei's death but said, "I think no one would mourn the passing of Ayatollah Khamenei. But I would also say that, ultimately, any regime change must be determined by the people of Iran." Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was equally unambiguous, describing the regime as "authoritarian, antisemitic and abhorrent" and noting it had sought nuclear weapons, encouraged terrorism through its proxies, and supplied weapons to Russia.
The Questions That Remain
Yet the bipartisan consensus in Canberra does not resolve the genuinely difficult questions this operation raises. The United Nations Charter prohibits the pre-emptive assassination of a foreign head of state, and the legal framework being invoked by Washington and Jerusalem is disputed. China has called for an immediate cessation of military action, arguing the strikes violate international law. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the strikes by the US and Israel, as well as Iran's retaliatory strikes, saying: "We are witnessing a grave threat to international peace and security. Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world."
There is no sign the US will send ground troops into Iran, and military analysts say it will be extremely difficult to topple the government with air power alone, making it impossible to say whether Iran's leadership is vulnerable to a domestic uprising or whether it would be able to crush protests as it did earlier this year. The Iranian diaspora worldwide, including many members of Australia's Iranian-born community, has celebrated news of Khamenei's death. But there are also profound anxieties about what follows: a leadership vacuum, a potential power struggle within the Iranian establishment, and the risk that an uncertain succession produces something more dangerous than the regime it replaces.
What Western coverage frequently misses is that Iran is not a monolith. Millions of Iranians have risked their lives in successive waves of protest against the Islamic Republic. The question is whether the sudden removal of its supreme leader, carried out by foreign military power rather than domestic agency, produces the conditions for genuine democratic change or triggers a violent consolidation by hardliners within the Revolutionary Guard. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the goal of the joint US-Israeli attack is to "remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran," adding: "Our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands." Those are the right words. Whether the reality follows is the question that will define the coming months.
Reasonable people can hold competing views on whether removing a regime this brutal required this method. The Iranian government's killing of thousands of its own citizens during the recent protest crackdown and its nuclear ambitions gave Washington and Jerusalem a genuine grievance that diplomatic tools had not resolved. The strategic risks, for global energy markets, for regional stability, and for Australia's security and economic interests, are equally real. Canberra must now navigate a volatile period, pushing for de-escalation while supporting the principle that Iran cannot be permitted to become a nuclear-armed state. These goals are not incompatible, but they will require deft diplomacy at exactly the moment the region is least disposed to listen.