(RNS) — The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for nearly four decades, on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is triggering starkly different reactions in the Middle East and around the globe. Not only the Muslim world’s longest-serving ruler, Khamenei was also one of the most powerful Shiite clerics in the world.
Among Muslims, the responses are split mostly along sectarian lines. Despite his tyrannical rule that killed more than 7,000 Iranians just in the past eight months, many in Iran, a majority Shiite nation, are mourning Khamenei as a martyr. Hundreds of others have been captured on video celebrating his demise, chanting and dancing in jubilation.
The broad range of Iranians’ reactions reflects the country’s political diversity, said Mehdi Shadmehr, associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who compared the ideological split in Iran to the United States or Russia.
“We may be inclined to assume that nearly all Russian citizens despise Putin,” said Shadmehr, noting evidence that many do not, “at least relative to available alternatives. Similarly, we should not take it for granted that all Iranian citizens despise Khamenei, or that, among those who do, nearly all would approve of his kil …