US-Israeli strikes on Iran kill Khamenei; war begins

Before dawn local time on 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel launched joint air campaigns against Iran — named Operation Epic Fury by the US government and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel — striking leadership, air-defense, missile, naval and defense-industrial targets across the country.¹² President Trump confirmed on 28 February that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed; four Israeli security officials told the Washington Post that Khamenei died in a strike in Tehran, and Iranian state media confirmed his death on 1 March, reporting that his daughter, a grandchild, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law were also killed.²³ The strikes came approximately 36 hours after the third round of the Omani-mediated US-Iran nuclear negotiations — continued in Geneva from a 17 February round — ended on 26 February without a deal, with the United States demanding an end to Iranian uranium enrichment and the surrender of Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile, per CNBC’s reporting of the talks; a technical-level round was scheduled to continue in Vienna the following week when the strikes occurred. The strikes followed the largest US military buildup in the region since 2003: two carrier strike groups and more than 100 fighter aircraft assembled through February.⁴⁵ Iranian units responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel and on US bases and facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Iraq; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps broadcast warnings to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz within hours; and Hezbollah resumed rocket and drone attacks on Israel on 2 March — its first since the November 2024 ceasefire — framing them as retaliation for Khamenei’s killing.⁶⁷ The government of Iran declared 40 days of national mourning, and President Masoud Pezeshkian called the killing “this historic crime” and avenging it Iran’s “legitimate duty and right.”⁸⁹ On 1 March Ali Larijani announced an interim leadership council — President Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Mohseni-Eje’i and Guardian Council jurist Alireza Arafi — pending the Assembly of Experts’ selection of a successor; UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the emergency Security Council session on 28 February that he “deeply regret[ted] that this opportunity of diplomacy has been squandered,” condemned Iran’s retaliation against seven Arab states, and said, “We are witnessing a grave threat to international peace and security.”¹⁰¹¹ The President’s war-powers message to Congress, dated 2 March 2026, invoked his “constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations” and — in a break from half a century of executive practice — omitted the customary statement that the report was provided “consistent with the War Powers Resolution.”¹²

1. The constitutional framework for unilateral presidential force operates through Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), and Justice Jackson’s three-zone concurrence at 635-38: presidential power is “at its maximum” with congressional authorisation, in “a zone of twilight” where Congress is silent, and “at its lowest ebb” where incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress. No authorisation for the use of military force against Iran was enacted before the strikes; Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) had introduced a war-powers resolution on 29 January and announced on 26 February — two days before the strikes — that they would force a floor vote.¹³¹⁴ The War Powers Resolution’s reporting duty at 50 U.S.C. § 1543(a) requires a report to Congress within 48 hours when US forces are introduced “into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances”; the 2 March message did not state that it was provided “consistent with the War Powers Resolution” — the formulation presidents of both parties have used since 1973 to report while reserving the constitutional objection — resting instead on Commander-in-Chief authority alone.¹⁵¹²

2. The killing of a head of state in a strike ordered without congressional authorisation operates against the assassination prohibition of Executive Order 12333 § 2.11, which provides that “[n]o person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”¹⁶ The administration’s stated justifications — preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon and responding to the threats recited in the President’s 6 February fact sheet and its accompanying secondary- tariff order on purchasers of Iranian goods — treat the strike as an act of armed conflict against a military chain of command rather than an assassination; member states’ contesting characterisations are recorded in the 28 February emergency Security Council debate.¹⁷¹⁸

3. Succession mechanics under the Iranian constitution route through the Assembly of Experts, the 88-member clerical body empowered to select the Supreme Leader; the interim council announced by Larijani on 1 March holds leadership functions pending the Assembly’s session.¹⁰ The war’s opening days also activated the region-wide basing exposure of US forces: the Secretary-General’s statement names Iranian attacks violating the sovereignty of seven states — Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.¹¹⁶

4. Oil and shipping markets carry the first economic transmission channel. The IRGC’s warnings to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly a fifth of global oil supply transits — began within hours of the strikes, and the first attacks on merchant vessels followed on 1 March, placing the energy-price path at the centre of the war’s economic transmission.¹⁹