Jack Posobiec

And for anyone who has any basic understanding of Shia Islam, this is a particular strain of Islam that emphasizes martyrs, that emphasizes martyrdom, that emphasizes what they consider

the great heroes, the great leaders.

And so they are certainly going to be using the Ayatollah's image, his legacy as a martyr for them going forward to try to achieve a rally around the flag moment for the regime in terms of any response.

Now, that being said, it still remains to be seen what more strikes continue and what leadership takes charge.

I believe that the Iranian president did release a statement yesterday

on video earlier today.

And so it does look like, although they took out Ahmadinejad, the previous president, that the current president does still seem to be alive and kicking.

And there are also, of course, real questions about how much operational day-to-day control that Ayatollah Khomeini, being almost 90 years old, 86 years old, really held or wielded within Iran.

And in fact, his son,

is considered to someone who is actually a lot of the power behind the scenes there, as well as these ruling councils.

And so we're hearing that these Islamic ruling councils are now stepping up to become the interim caretakers before a new Ayatollah is appointed.

Well, Steve, that's exactly right.

I mean, these are the people who came in and they went full Tiananmen Square on the protesters the last time around, just back in December.

So, you know, you've got it.

all of these people knowing that that's exactly what can happen to them and so they're still you know you see the youth and we're still willing to come out and show their support but at the same time we haven't seen yet those mass protests like we saw these mass demonstrations in december that you know i just compare it to the tiananmen protest which of course ended in the tiananmen square massacre that's the closest thing i can think of that it uh that it reminds me of there

And so we've yet to really see that take place this time around.

Now, again, things can change.

We are only in day two.

This is D2 of the entire thing, or D plus one.

And so we're now seeing more American strikes.