لحظة ادراك

“If the Singer Leaves, the Songs Remain”

As the saying goes, ideas take the shape of the vessel that contains them. He departed along the path he chose for himself. He refused to hide in fortified places, for his stature and ideological legacy neither allowed nor suited a life of concealment and pursuit. He was the heir of an ideological revolution that settled in 1979 on the soil of the Persian Empire, whose roots stretch deep into history. The Guardian Jurist is not a passing term wrapped in some mystical aura, nor merely the leader of a regional axis with followers, nor a conventional religious authority, as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu might imagine. The political decision to assassinate Ali Khamenei would send reverberations throughout the Middle East for many years to come. Political analysts would likely treat it as one of the greatest strategic mistakes committed in this chapter of the conflict.

History holds moments when some politicians believe the world can be reshaped with a single blow. They imagine that striking the head means the body will fall, and that killing the man means the end of the idea. Yet history—in both its cruelty and its wisdom—has repeatedly shown that ideas are more stubborn than bodies, and that regimes which succeed in transforming themselves into a political, religious, or national narrative do not die with the death of their leaders. Thus the old phrase becomes understandable: “If the singer leaves, the songs remain.”

The singer is the individual; the songs are the ideas. The singer may fall to the sound of a bullet, a missile, or something less dramatic. But the song lives on in the collective memory—in institutions, in discourse, and in the interests of those who believe in it or benefit from it. That is why those who speak of assassinating a leader as a magical solution to end an entire system treat politics as if it were a play with a single hero standing on stage. In reality, politics is a complex web of institutions, loyalties, ideologies, and interests. Can the assassination of a leader like Ali Khamenei end the Iranian regime? In the Iranian case, this question appears clearly—and the answer closest to the logic of history is most likely a resounding no.

He held in one hand the military decision of Tehran, and in the other its foreign policy. He was the balancing force between the Revolutionary Guard and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—and there is a vast difference between the two. Negotiations could hardly have begun, nor two wars unfolded within them, without his presence. If he were gone—taking with him a large portion of the regime’s authority and regional influence—and if an important chapter of the revolutionary logic were closed, an even heavier chapter would open: that of ideological revenge. This is a system built to outlive individuals once alternatives are available—and there are many. These alternatives will not necessarily fit the expectations of those who decided on physical elimination. The orchestra would continue to play: the musicians are many, the score is still preserved, and the audience still desires to listen.

The singer has departed, leaving behind a tremendous sense of loss—and an equally immense desire for revenge. Taboos slipped their restraints, and responses began filling every void in the calculations of geography, politics, and history, in an unexpected reversal of what the perpetrators had intended. The streets filled with those angered by the act—not with opponents of the regime. For opposition forces to descend into the streets at such a historical moment would first mean confronting the regime’s popular base before confronting its security and military apparatus.

The regime quickly regained its cohesion and absorbed the initial blow. It filled the voids. The Iranian president appeared addressing Arabs and Muslims, explaining that the strikes that had reached them were not directed at them but at American interests. He also claimed that the first strikes were the direct cause of the confusion Iran had experienced—and he did not lack the moral boldness to offer an apology for them.

Soon the military brushed aside this apology, especially after Donald Trump interpreted it as a sign of weakness. A clear message emerged from Iran: the decision now lay in the hands of the Revolutionary Guard, not the politicians. The politicians themselves were accused of entering negotiation rounds whose outcomes had been known in advance. Thus Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu found themselves—only a week into the war—facing a truly zero-sum equation. The war that was supposed to be decided by the first strikes, unleashing chaos and filling the streets with those demanding the fall of the regime, did not occur. Instead they faced two options: continue the war until the regime submits completely to Trump’s conditions—“total surrender”—or collapses under the pressure of strikes; or stop the war where it stands and return to what existed before it: sanctions, negotiations, and everything that accompanies them.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu understand that the ruling system in Iran is the centerpiece of the confrontation axis against the United States and Israel in the Middle East. No dismantling of that axis can occur while the regime in Iran remains in power. After this round of conflict, they also know that the matter is no longer simple. It may require many weeks of waves upon waves of bombardment and deeper destruction of infrastructure to exert greater pressure on the regime. The picture has thus become clearer: the conflict has expanded—especially after Hezbollah entered the confrontation as a compelled choice. It is also evident that the Gulf states now find themselves in a situation offering few options, each more bitter than the other. Direct involvement in the confrontation may prove the most complex of them all.

Observers cannot fail to notice the confusion surrounding Donald Trump, whose war aims seem subject to change with every development—rising and falling in a process that has become measurable. This stands in contrast to Benjamin Netanyahu, who has set the head of the regime as the sole objective of the war. Since the war was originally his project—after he succeeded in drawing Trump into it—it has become clear that it will not end except with the termination of the Iranian regime. Trump, however, may see another possibility: that it could end with figures from within the same regime who would accept normal relations with America and its ally Israel, and voluntarily dismantle all disputed files according to the American vision—an outcome that does not appear likely in the foreseeable future.

The singer may one day depart, as all human beings do. But the real question is not the fate of the individual or who succeeds him. It is the fate of the melody he sang. Will it change? Will it transform? Or will it remain as it is?

In the end, politics is not the story of individuals so much as it is the story of ideas, institutions, and social forces. That is why when the singer departs, the songs remain—not because the singer was immortal, but because the song has become part of the audience’s memory.

In politics, as in music, the voice may change, but the melody that people have learned over a long time does not disappear as easily as some imagine—even if you try to bring someone who imitates it in form rather than substance. In lands where lamentations have been held for fourteen centuries in regret over betrayal, and where prayers are offered upon stones from the soil of Karbala, a thousand singers may depart—yet the songs will remain the same.