At the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, there was an incident where British artillery had the opportunity to fire directly at Napoleon Bonaparte, but the action was stopped by the Duke of Wellington. An artillery officer pointed out Napoleon to Wellington, asking for permission to fire upon him, to which Wellington reportedly replied: “No, no; I won’t have it. It is not the business of commanders to be firing upon one another”. This was considered an act of military etiquette, as it was generally seen as improper for commanders to intentionally try to kill their direct counterparts in this manner.
Now, in 2026, China has strongly condemned the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling the move “a grave violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security”. The US-Israeli strikes against Iran have drawn widespread condemnation, with Al Jazeera describing them as “the most aggressive escalation yet of US reliance on military force to pressure foreign governments”. Like many others, China, has warned that the attack on Iran represents a high-stakes gamble that could draw the US into a prolonged and widening crisis it may not be able to control. They also warned that the US’ killing of another country’s leader, would further complicate the global security landscape and provoke even more extreme acts of retaliation1.
While nobody will ever know what would have happened at Waterloo if Wellington’s artillery had killed Napoleon, we will soon find out what will happen in Iran after Ali Khamenei’s death, and his replacement by his son, Mojtaba. Initially, it seems to have united Iranians, despite the extremely repressive nature of the regime. This may be due to the fact that the older Khamenei was not only the dictator, but also the spiritual leader of the Shia, a religious group with followers not only in Iran.
In addition to this, there have been rumours circulation on the web that the monster of Gaza, Netanyahu, has been killed in an Iranian missile/drone strike. There have been half-arsed AI-created videos of him giving a speech, with the telltale polydactyly being a bit of a giveaway2. Whether this rumour is true, or not, only time will tell.
While China might complain that the killing of Khamenei is an attack on the sovereignty of Iran, I think ‘decapitation’ attacks on the leadership of warring countries should occur more often. It will make cowardly politicians of all stripes a little more circumspect when deciding to send the children of other people (it is rarely their own) to fight and die in the pursuit of some spurious claims of non-existent weapons of mass destruction (Iraq, 2003), or non-existent nuclear weapon programs (Iran, 2025, 2026).
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