Late on a Friday night during Ramadan, news spread that Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader for over four decades, had been killed in joint US-Israeli airstrikes targeting multiple Iranian cities in what was called "Operation Epic Fury." Iran retaliated, drawing into the fold of the imposed war the neighbouring Gulf countries.
The impact travelled further, miles away, through grief. In Kashmir, thousands poured into the streets of Srinagar, Sunni and Shia together, chanting slogans against ‘American and Israeli terror’, holding portraits of Khamenei, praying collectively at Lal Chowk and observing a complete shutdown, a strike call given by Muttahida Majlis-e-Ulema (MMU).
To understand why, you have to go back to 1980, when a 41-year-old Khamenei — not yet Supreme Leader — flew into Srinagar airport as a messenger from revolutionary Iran. On a Friday, he stood at the historic Jamia Masjid beside Kashmir's chief Sunni cleric and delivered a quiet, 15-minute sermon.
He said nothing about politics or revolution. He spoke only of the faith that connects Muslims, gently arguing that the walls between Shia and Sunni were built by humans and could therefore come down. Almost immediately, the two communities began praying in each other's mosques, and that unity has held for decades.
This unity continued for decades, culminating in collective tears for a lost leader in a faraway land. This is the human cost of "regime change," which is never mentioned in think-tank reports or realpolitik's cutting of historical and spiritual ties.
Ayatollah Khamenei was a powerful symbol of people’s sufferings, inspiring not only Iranians but people everywhere who value human freedoms. From the streets of the United States to the capitals of Europe, where millions have demonstrated against aggression towards Iran, it reflects a deep rejection of war.
A Trail of Fractured States
The assassination is not a one-off act of retaliation. It is the most recent and most perilous chapter in a long and vile history of intervention. According to a recent analysis, the United States has far too frequently acted as a global goon in ‘regime-change’ wars that have only resulted in destruction.
The world is still haunted by the interventions in the past. In Iraq, the US invasion removed Saddam Hussein but unleashed a sectarian civil war, creating the power vacuum that gave rise to ISIS, and left the country a fragile proxy battlefield.
In Libya, the NATO-led intervention toppled Muammar Gaddafi and produced a failed state, its factions armed to the teeth, its people trapped in a perpetual war of all against all.
A popular uprising in Syria was coopted and crushed in a brutal conflict that drew international powers and displaced half of the country's population. The model of regime change, which has been carried out in the name of democracy or stability, has systematically destroyed the nations it claimed to save.
Iran has now been the target of this doctrine. The world watched as the Trump administration's "gunboat diplomacy," characterised by unilateral bombing of nuclear facilities and threats to "wipe Iran off the face of the earth," escalated into a direct attack on a nation's sovereign leadership.
Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, said at Davos that the "global rules-based order is collapsing". His words now sound like a prophetic rather than alarmist warning. The world is heading toward lawlessness, where the only law is that of the strongest, as French President Emmanuel Macron lamented.
The targeted killing of a head of state is the ultimate trampling of the UN Charter, an act that China, besides Russia and Pakistan, rightly condemned as "a serious violation of Iran's sovereignty and security."
Israel, with active complicity of the dominant USA, struck key sites like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Imam Ali Navy Base in Chabahar, located in the Sistan near Baluchistan province, sending a clear message to Islamabad and Beijing.
As the seat of Pakistan's military leadership, Rawalpindi now faces the unmistakable threat of becoming the next target, which will exacerbate regional tensions. Washington preaches a rules-based order yet behaves unilaterally, exposing its hypocrisy.
Early this year, India reduced its presence in Iran’s Chabahar port to a skeletal one, under pressure from US sanctions waivers. In striking contrast in 1994, a gravely ill Foreign Minister Dinesh Singh flew to Tehran bearing Narasimha Rao's personal letter, and Iran repaid that bold diplomatic investment by single-handedly burying a Pakistan-sponsored OIC resolution on Kashmir, sparing India the nightmare of Security Council sanctions.
The Spectre of a Wider War
The question at this point is not whether or not there will be a response, but rather how far the fire will spread.
Iran has stated that it will respond by using "all available means." It has its finger on the trigger and is well-known for being able to strike US bases throughout the Middle East through its proxy networks, and it is doing that. Iran has already received support from Russia, China, and North Korea, indicating a possible realignment of global powers against the unilateral action.
South Asia, a region already grappling with the Pakistan-Afghanistan conundrum, faces the threat of being engulfed by this conflict. The ultimate symbol of a failed intervention was the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in the Taliban regaining power.
Now, the new "Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement" between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia hangs over the region like a nuclear sword of Damocles. It effectively extends Pakistan's nuclear control over the Kingdom and is referred to as an Article 5-style agreement.
Will Islamabad be forced to activate the pact if Iran retaliates aggressively against USA’s Gulf assets in Saudi Arabia? Will Rawalpindi or Riyadh join or remain neutral. Pakistani officials have already hinted that Saudi Arabia could be offered access to Pakistan's nuclear capability. This transforms what begins as an Iran-US-Israel conflict into something far more dangerous: a scenario where nuclear weapons enter the equation, either pointed at Tel Aviv, if Israel moves toward Riyadh, or deployed in defence of Saudi Arabia against Iran.
What makes this especially unstable is Pakistan's internal condition. Civilian institutions are weak and fractured, but the military remains the one consistently powerful force in the country, making any decision-making towards escalation bereft of democratic checks.
The Middle East has always been a pressure point, but the present conflict has the potential to ignite the entire Asian continent.
The Muslim World
The issue of Muslim unity rises to the top in this time of existential peril. However, the track record is extremely depressing. The "collective voice of the Muslim world," the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has demonstrated itself to be a master of rhetoric and a failure of action.
After an Israeli attack on Qatari soil, the recent Doha Summit was called. It is not clear now what line it will take. The body is hampered by internal divisions because its members come from revolutionary republics to monarchies that are allied with the US, all of them are pursuing their own national interests.
Iran has long cited this internal conflict as the main weakness of the Muslim world. At a recent unity conference held in Tehran, President Masoud Pezeshkian argued, "If the Islamic society were united, Israel and America would not dare to look at us sideways." Our disagreements and divisions with one another constitute the primary issue.
In times of crisis, the concept of an "Islamic NATO" reappears, only to be defeated by the political competition between powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. As nations hedge their bets between the US-led camp and an emerging multipolar order, Khamenei's assassination could be the spark that either forces a fragile unity or, more likely, deepens it.
Role of External Powers
The architecture of this new order is currently being constructed, and extra-regional powers play a crucial role. Others are rushing to fill the void left by the declining US influence.
Iran is seen as a crucial partner for Russia, which is already mired in its own conflict with the West. The killing was swiftly and unambiguously condemned as a "cynical murder" by President Putin.
China views the escalation with alarm. Beijing has a significant stake in the stability of the region to safeguard its Belt and Road Initiative as the architect of a historic détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Its strong condemnation of the murder reflects a fear that a regional war could destroy its economic ambitions.
Turkey finds itself caught between loyalties. It is a NATO member, yet one of Israel's harshest critics, with Erdogan calling it a "terrorist mindset embodied in a state." Ankara will likely condemn the assassination, but the real question is whether condemnation translates into active diplomacy, because only coordinated pressure from regional powers can realistically pull the situation back from the edge.
At the UN Security Council's emergency session, Iran's Ambassador Iravani made clear who Tehran considers its allies, specifically thanking Russia, China, and Pakistan for condemning the strikes. These acknowledgements matter, but they are meaningless unless it moves from condemnation to unified, concrete de-escalation efforts.
The Institutions Under Siege
International institutions are buckling under the pressure. South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the ICJ, with Iran seeking to contribute its interpretation, risks becoming irrelevant if the conflict spirals. Courts can interpret the law, but cannot enforce it against those powerful enough to ignore it.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that multipolarity alone does not guarantee peace, and that weak cooperation between rival powers only deepens instability. He has called for genuine reform and the current crisis proves his point. A world where powerful nations act unilaterally is fragmenting, and the Security Council, already paralysed by vetoes since Gaza, now faces its hardest test yet: stopping a third World War.
Warning and the Way Forward
70-85 million people died in World War II. Of those, 50-55 million were civilians, many of whom were killed in genocide, massacres, or starvation, and between 21-25 million were military personnel. The then Soviet Union suffered the most, with more than 20 million deaths.
Although no World War has been declared since 1945, the estimated death toll from wars, proxy conflicts, and interventions since then is more than double that of World War II. We have been living through a slow-burning World War for eighty years, masked by the fact that it has been fought on the soil of the global south.
The killing of Ali Khamenei, widespread protests, the bombings in Gaza, the drone strikes in Africa, they are all front-line reports from this ongoing conflict.
The way forward is not through more bombs, more regime changes, or more "gunboat diplomacy." The track record is clear: that path leads only to failed states and more terrorism.
Even though it's not perfect, dialogue and diplomacy are the way to move forward.
A collective diplomatic front — drawing on Russia, China, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, South Africa, and the EU — must immediately engage both Iran and the United States to prevent military escalation from becoming irreversible.
Beyond the immediate crisis, the deeper architecture needs fixing. A reformed UN Security Council with permanent representation from Africa and the Global South is not an idealistic demand but a practical necessity. The old unipolar order has proven not just unfair, but dangerously unstable.
There is a need to address root causes. The Palestinian issue, and others like it, will continue to poison the region and fuel radicalisation as long as international law is applied selectively. The ICJ process must be allowed to run its course, and the double standards that sanctify some sovereignty while ignoring others must end.
History offers a lesson. A 15-minute sermon in a Srinagar Mosque once dissolved decades of sectarian division. The ruins of Iraq and Libya show where interventionism leads. The choice is between unilateral force and endless war, or the slow, unglamorous work of diplomacy and a world where people can live without fear.
The ‘world of pieces’ lies bleeding. The question is whether we will heed the warnings of history and the cries of humanity as a whole, or whether we will let the robots destroy everything.
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