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Message: [QUOTE="Queen, post: 87527, member: 27"] Three decades of iron-fisted rule ended Saturday when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Khamenei's grip on power for 35+ years [LIST] [*]Khamenei became the supreme leader in 1989 after a last-minute constitutional tweak. [*]His religious credentials fell short, but a claimed deathbed wish from Khomeini sealed it. [*]The Revolutionary Guards served as his loyalty engine and parallel military force. [*]By the end, many Iranians viewed him as a corrupt dictator. [/LIST] Dissent got crushed every single time [LIST] [*]The 2009 Green Revolution was smashed after he endorsed a rigged election. [*]Mahsa Amini's 2022 death in custody sparked nationwide women-led protests. [*]January 2026 saw security forces open fire, killing thousands of protesters. [*]Each uprising ended the same way with arrests, executions, and praise for the crackdown. [/LIST] Iran's nuclear saga drove everything [LIST] [*]A secret enrichment program got exposed back in 2002. [*]Khamenei backed the 2015 deal but kept insisting on Iran's sovereign rights. [*]Trump's 2018 withdrawal from that deal restarted the whole enrichment cycle. [*]Iran eventually crossed the nuclear-capable threshold with enough uranium for a warhead. [/LIST] Regional power plays and their cost [LIST] [*]Iran armed Shiite militias across Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. [*]Khamenei sent forces into Syria to prop up Assad, but the rebels won anyway. [*]Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel got its full-throated endorsement. [*]Israeli strikes in 2024 wrecked Hezbollah's leadership and military capacity. [/LIST] The U.S.-Iran collision course [LIST] [*]Qassim Suleimani's killing in a 2020 drone strike nearly triggered all-out war. [*]Iran retaliated with missiles at U.S. troops, injuring over 100 soldiers. [*]A Revolutionary Guards officer then accidentally downed a Ukrainian passenger jet. [*]Khamenei's government lied about it for three days before evidence forced a confession. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]

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