Donald Trump says he’s liberated the people of Iran to forge their own future, after killing their autocratic leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But as the bombing continues and any organised resistance struggles to emerge, is this ethnically diverse land, with thousands of years of history, at risk of breaking up or descending into sectarian division? Nahid Siamdoust of the University of Texas specialises in the politics and culture of the Middle East. She’s also part of the Iranian diaspora.
Acclaimed journalist Robin Wright of The New Yorker covered Iran from the start of the 1979 revolution, which brought the first ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini, to power. She’s sceptical that the United States and Israel can bring change through aerial bombardment.
As the regime in Iran fell, a handful of Shia Muslim communities in Australia went into mourning for the Ayatollah, drawing criticism from New South Wales premier Chris Minns. Khamenei was a brutal autocrat, but he was also a spiritual leader to many Shi’ites. Is it the role of the state to decide who a religious community can mourn? Dr Renae Barker specialises in law and religion at the University of Western Australia law.
Australia