Farnaz Fassihi

The regime cut off the internet in Iran on the 8th of January, hoping to prevent coverage of its crackdown on protesters.

Including the recent wave in January where he personally ordered the shoot to kill order.

That we think killed thousands.

Exactly.

He ordered security forces to open fire on unarmed protesters with lethal force.

And as a result, over three days, a massacre happened because Mr. Khamenei did not tolerate dissent and wanted to suppress any cause of change.

This was a surprise, Michael.

Nobody thought that they would find Mr. Khamenei above ground and in his compound during a time where U.S.

military had amassed warships and fighter planes all around Iran.

But at the end, he was sitting in his office at 9.30 a.m.

and next door to him was a high-profile meeting of basically all the senior military commands strategizing for the war.

Well, I think that it's possible that they got a little complacent, that they got a little sloppy.

I think that they calculated that strikes would happen in the middle of the night, not at 9.30, 10 a.m.,

on a workday where lots of children were in school and people were at work.

And they thought that they had a window to congregate and plan for attacks that they thought might be imminent in the middle of the night.

And I think they miscalculated gravely.

And what many Iranian officials now say is that Mr. Khamenei had refused to leave his home and his compound and had indicated to people around him that if he's going to get attacked and war starts, he would rather become a martyr.

I think that in his mind, his legacy would be better protected if he was seen as somebody who was not in hiding, was not afraid to

Whereas if he would have the fate of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and get captured, or if his regime would be toppled, he would be humiliated, right?

So I think there was this desire by him to have the kind of ending that he envisioned and he wanted.