Bangladesh, March 1 -- The reported death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marks more than the end of a single political life. It represents a watershed moment in the evolution of regional order, the norms governing sovereignty, and the internal mechanics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. If the strike attributed to the United States and Israel is indeed responsible for his death, then we are witnessing not simply a targeted operation but the normalization of leader-elimination as an instrument of statecraft.

For observers in South Asia and the broader Global South-including readers in Bangladesh, where debates about sovereignty and great-power leverage resonate deeply-the precedent matters. When the top political authority of a UN member state ...