Watch: Khamenei rule and the three pillars of power — what were they?

Published on 02/03/2026 – 13:24 GMT+1•Updated
13:26

Ali Khamenei is dead, killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on Tehran Saturday during Operation Epic Fury.

His rule was built on a unique doctrine that gave him absolute religious and political control. It allowed him to bypass the parliament, the judiciary, and even the president, giving him the final say on absolutely everything.

Then there is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC. These 150,000 elite troops answered only to him. They act as the regime’s enforcer and a vast business conglomerate, an “empire within an empire” if you will, running everything from energy to telecoms.

Khamenei used this religious and military arm to build the so-called “Axis of Resistance.” By funding and training militant and extremist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and backing the al-Assad regime in Syria, Khamenei turned Iran into an untouchable regional belligerent.

Now, his death leaves a power vacuum. The strikes also killed multiple senior officials, including the IRGC head.

But remember, Khamenei did not invent the Islamic Republic of Iran. His predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, did, and the Republic survived his death. The Tehran regime was designed to prevent such a governance vacuum, and a temporary council, including the president, has already taken charge.

The real threat now is the anger of the Iranian population and the devastating damage of a wider war.

What is at stake is not just replacing a leader, but the very survival of the Islamic Republic.

And as the world watches, this sudden void is about to impact global security and likely drive up your fuel prices.

Watch the Euronews video in the player above for the full story.