Axios

As Israeli bombs fell on the supreme leader's compound in Tehran on Saturday morning, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was meeting above ground with several of his top advisers.

• He never saw it coming.

Why it matters: The joint U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Khamenei was the culmination of two months in which President Trump pursued both diplomacy and war — on parallel tracks. On Friday, he chose war.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike Saturday as part of a massive joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel, Iranian state media confirmed.

The latest: The Iranian government announced 40 days of public mourning following the "martyrdom" of the 86-year-old ayatollah, who had ruled Iran for over 36 years.

President Trump's bid to topple Iran's regime marks a sharp break from two decades of U.S. intervention playbooks across multiple presidencies.

The big picture: Trump's weekend strikes on Iran — and his explicit call for an uprising — diverge from how the U.S. approached regime pressure in Iraq and Venezuela, historians tell Axios. The gamble signals a more unpredictable stretch of his foreign policy ahead as he openly threatens force elsewhere.

The America First wing of the MAGA coalition wants swift results from Saturday's Iran strikes, often invoking the late Charlie Kirk's opposition to foreign wars.

The big picture: President Trump's invasion of Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro exposed a rift with some in his base, and a prolonged skirmish in the Middle East could exacerbate those tensions ahead of a difficult midterm election for Republicans.

President Trump told Axios on Saturday that he has several "off ramps" from Operation Epic Fury, the extraordinary U.S. military campaign against Iran that he launched early Saturday morning.

What they're saying: "I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: 'See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs]," Trump said in a five-minute phone interview from Mar-a-Lago.

The U.S. and Israel began "major combat operations" in Iran overnight with the aim of destroying the country's military capabilities and fostering regime change, President Trump announced in an overnight video statement.

The latest: Israel's Air Force conducted strikes against Iranian senior commanders and political leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in an effort to destabilize the regime, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

The joint U.S.–Israel strikes on Iran Saturday drew mixed reactions from around the globe.

The big picture: European leaders largely called for restraint and diplomacy to avoid further escalation, while U.S. adversaries condemned President Trump's decision to pursue military action.

Millions of dollars were poured into prediction markets centered on global war and an Iran regime change following the U.S. strikes against Iran Saturday morning.

Why it matters: Major world events — as seen through the Iran strikes and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January — have created new get-rich-quick moments.

Democratic divisions on Middle East policy roared back to the surface on Saturday after the U.S. and Israel launched what President Trump described as "major combat operations" in Iran.

Why it matters: There may be enough defections from hawkish Democrats to doom a measure Democratic leadership plans to force to a vote next week reining in Trump's war powers.

Editor's note: Iranian Supreme Leader was killed in an Israeli strike as part of a joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, according to Israeli and American officials.

The Israeli Air Force conducted numerous strikes across Iran Saturday morning in an attempt to assassinate Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior political and military leaders, Israeli and U.S. officials told Axios.

Why it matters: The U.S. and Israel have launched a massive joint military operation in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime, which has been in power since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.