Middle East After the Bunker: Iran’s Supreme Leader Faces a Nation Forever Changed

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Title: After the Bunker: Iran’s Supreme Leader Faces a Nation Forever Changed

 

After nearly two weeks in hiding during a brutal war with Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is expected to re-emerge into a country dramatically altered. The 86-year-old cleric reportedly remained holed up in a secret bunker, fearing assassination attempts by Israel, and had little to no contact with senior government officials. The ceasefire, tenuously brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar, has brought a halt to the fighting for now—but the damage, both physical and political, is irreversible.

 

 

Despite reports that President Trump warned Israel against targeting Khamenei, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not offer similar assurances, leaving open the possibility of future action. If Khamenei steps out, he will confront the ruins of a once formidable regime—militarily battered, economically broken, and deeply mistrusted by its people.

 

Iran’s military suffered significant losses as Israel took swift control of its airspace and conducted devastating strikes on Revolutionary Guard and army installations. Top commanders were killed in the opening days of the conflict. While the full extent of military damage remains unclear, the pattern of repeated bombings suggests a crippling degradation. Iran’s nuclear facilities—long the source of global sanctions and diplomatic tension—were also targeted, though details of the destruction are still emerging.

 

Public sentiment is shifting. Many Iranians now view Khamenei’s decisions as catastrophic, blaming him for the ideological obsession with Israel’s destruction and the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Both strategies, they argue, have brought nothing but economic ruin and international isolation. “It is difficult to estimate how much longer the Iranian regime can survive under such significant strain, but this looks like the beginning of the end,” says Professor Lina Khatib, a visiting scholar at Harvard University. “Ali Khamenei is likely to become the Islamic Republic's last 'Supreme Leader' in the full sense of the word.”

 

Dissent has surfaced even within Iran’s ruling elite. During the war, a semi-official news agency reported that some former regime figures appealed to religious scholars in Qom—traditionally separate from the ruling ayatollah’s apparatus—to intervene and push for a leadership transition. “There will be a reckoning,” said Professor Ali Ansari, founding director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews. “It's quite clear that there are huge disagreements within the leadership, and there's also huge unhappiness among ordinary people.”

 

In the past two weeks, many Iranians displayed remarkable solidarity—supporting each other in the face of crisis. People opened their homes to the displaced, shopkeepers provided goods at reduced prices, and neighborhoods came together in mutual aid. But beneath this unity lies a painful duality: the urge to protect the homeland against external threats versus the long-standing resentment of a repressive regime.

 

While many hope for regime change, they remain wary of one orchestrated by outside powers. Yet Iran’s parliament has voted to curtail cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, possibly setting the stage for withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty—a move hardliners believe will finally allow Iran to build a nuclear bomb.

 

Khamenei may see survival as a temporary victory. But at 86, frail and increasingly isolated, he must now consider the legacy of his rule. Whether he hands power to another cleric or a council of leaders, the Iran he left behind when he entered the bunker is not the Iran he will return to. And many within its borders may no longer welcome him back.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from BBC  2025-06-27