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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/opinion/iran-khamenei-dead.html
We Are Finally Free from Khamenei's Suffocating Gaze
(New York Times) Azadeh Moaveni - The face of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has loomed over everyone's life in Iran. The requisite photo of him was hung in every public space, where people learned, worked, lunched, transacted, watched theater, saw art and visited the doctor. He was always there, watching. The permanence of his image signified the control of the regime. Now he is dead. Will another face replace his and carry on a version of the same story? When I first saw the words "Ali Khamenei has been killed" flash on a television screen, there was no relief, just a flood of grief for all the suffering and the bleak inheritance he had left us. Released from the grip of life under Ayatollah Khamenei, tens of millions of Iranians - inside the country and out - will grasp at whole new ways to contemplate the future. For the first time in 47 years, there will be possibilities: about how to articulate a new Iranian identity, and about how to relate to one another outside the logic of repression. Even if the war carries on for weeks, even if Iran returns to talks after inflicting what damage it can, Iran's fundamental crises remain: the economy on the brink of collapse and the state at open war with its citizenry. There is a dignity in the chance to envision the path to a different kind of rule, for moving beyond the failed Islamic model. The writer is an associate professor of journalism at New York University.