Live Updates: Iran’s Supreme Leader Threatens ‘Irreparable Damage’ if U.S. Joins War

Two buildings were also destroyed at a workshop in Karaj, a city northwest of the capital, where other components were manufactured, the I.A.E.A. added. The agency said it had previously monitored both sites under a 2015 nuclear agreement that Iran signed with the Obama administration and other governments.

The Israeli military said earlier that it had deployed more than 50 warplanes across Tehran overnight to attack weapons production facilities and a centrifuge plant that it said were being used to enrich uranium and manufacture parts used to develop weapons. A military official later said that about 20 targets were hit.

Israel launched a military campaign last week that it said was designed to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, attacking military infrastructure and government buildings and assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and military commanders.

On Friday, the Israeli military targeted the nuclear site at Natanz, where Iran produces most of its nuclear fuel. The I.A.E.A. initially said that the attack had destroyed the aboveground part of the fuel enrichment plant, including electricity infrastructure. The agency said on Tuesday that it had also identified “direct impacts” on the underground enrichment halls.

Iran says that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and has consistently denied that it plans to build a bomb. Tehran has also given no indication that it intends to abandon its atomic industry, and it has launched a wave of deadly missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation.

Last Thursday, the I.A.E.A. said that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, the first time the agency has passed a resolution against the country in 20 years.

“Intelligent people who know Iran, the nation and the history of Iran will never speak to this nation in the language of threats, because the Iranian nation cannot be surrendered,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a televised statement on Wednesday, according to Iranian state media. “The Americans should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage.”

The statement on the sixth day of the war came just hours after Israel said it launched a fresh wave of strikes on the Iranian capital.

Overnight, the ayatollah had issued a defiant call to arms, saying in a post on social media that “the battle begins.”

In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that the United States knew where Ayatollah Khamenei was “hiding,” and said that its forces do not plan to kill him for now. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has also spoken in recent days of a potential strike on the Iranian leader.

Ayatollah Khamenei, who has led Iran for more than three decades and is at the heart of Iran’s hard-line foreign policy, did not directly address the threats against his life in his statement or on social media.

He has played a key role in positioning Iran as a counterweight to American, Israeli and Saudi influence across the Middle East. Ayatollah Khamenei has also consolidated control of Iran’s political, military and security apparatus, and crushed dissent to shore up his position as the country’s ultimate decision maker.

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting

WhatsApp, in a statement on Tuesday, said the allegations were false.

“We’re concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most,” the statement said. “All of the messages you send to family and friends on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted, meaning no one except the sender and recipient has access to those messages, not even WhatsApp.”

Internet services across Iran have been suffering severe disruptions, according to Iranian officials, experts and citizens, who say the government is likely restricting access to limit the spread of information about strikes and for fear of Israeli cyberattacks.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, is one of the world’s most popular messaging services. It said in the statement that it does not track users’ precise location, nor does it monitor the messages people are sending one another. “We do not provide bulk information to any government,” the statement said.

End-to-end encryption makes it very hard for law enforcement and spy agencies to get access to people’s digital communications.

Israel’s massive, ongoing assault on Iran highlights an extraordinary shift in Israeli military doctrine since Hamas, Iran’s Palestinian ally, attacked the country in October 2023. It is a change that has redrawn the power dynamics in the Middle East, unraveled Iran’s regional alliance and enshrined Israel as the dominant military force in the region.

Having given Hamas years to prepare for the Oct. 7 attack, Israel reversed course afterward to unleash one of the most destructive campaigns in recent warfare. It then assassinated most of Hezbollah’s leadership and decimated large parts of southern Lebanon. Now, in Iran, it is carrying out the kind of broad and brazen attack that it long threatened but never dared to enact.

“We are changing the face of the Middle East,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a press briefing on Monday. “And this could lead to far-reaching changes within Iran itself,” he added.

For now, that second claim remains unproven. The Israeli military campaign has weakened Iran, but it has not yet destroyed the country’s nuclear program or collapsed its government, and it may still fall short of both. The war could also devolve into an intractable quagmire with no exit strategy or offramp.

Mr. Netanyahu’s broader point is harder to contradict. Hamas is no longer a threat to Israel. Hezbollah’s influence over Lebanon — let alone the danger it poses to Israelis — is much diminished. The government in Syria, a pillar of Iran’s regional alliance, was overthrown last December, in part because Hezbollah could no longer come to its aid.

These tectonic shifts also speak to a vast change within the Israeli psyche and strategic outlook since Hamas’s attack in October 2023.

For Israel’s critics, the attack was the inevitable consequence of the country’s blockade of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and failure to resolve the Palestinian conflict through diplomatic concessions. Many Israelis have drawn the opposite conclusion: They believe that the October attack — the deadliest in Israeli history — stemmed from Israel’s failure to pre-emptively and decisively defeat its enemies.

“In the 20 years before Oct. 7, we allowed threats to develop beyond our borders, trusting that our intelligence would give us prior warnings of any attack,” said Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence.

“The trauma of Oct. 7 completely changed that mind-set and made us willing to take risks that we didn’t take in the past,” General Yadlin said. “We will no longer wait to be attacked, and we will not wait to be surprised.”

The approach echoes Israel’s strategic outlook in the early decades of its existence, when it often acted more swiftly and decisively to remove threats on its borders, General Yadlin said. The clearest example was in June 1967, when Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt after the Egyptian military moved troops toward the Israeli border.

“As Egypt massed troops on our southern border, we did not wait to be surprised,” General Yadlin said. “Now, we are reviving that doctrine.”

Israel’s new approach is the culmination of months of re-evaluation, during which the military’s confidence — crushed by the failures of Oct. 7 — was gradually restored.

While Israel’s approach to Hamas was immediately wrathful, the country was initially wary of taking on Hezbollah and Iran. Mr. Netanyahu called off a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah in the first week of the war in 2023, amid fears that Israel would struggle to maintain a multi-front war against the Iran-led alliance.

For nearly a year, Israel fought only a low-level border conflict with Hezbollah. Despite increasing clashes with Tehran in 2024, Israel limited its strikes on Iran to avoid an all-out conflict.

Israel’s approach began to change last September, when a sequence of unexpected moves allowed Israel to decimate much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership.

That increased Israel’s confidence and prompted its leaders to order a more decisive assault on the group. Troops invaded southern Lebanon and the air force killed Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel then severely weakened Iran’s air defense systems and successfully repelled massive barrages of Iranian missiles, giving Israel greater confidence in its offensive and defensive abilities. More than a year after Oct. 7, Israeli leaders finally concluded that they had a rare window of opportunity to mount a decisive blow against Iran’s nuclear program.

Though Israel’s new approach has undercut Iran’s regional influence, it has done little to resolve Israel’s oldest and most intractable problem: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In Gaza, Israel’s retaliation has led to widespread destruction and bloodshed, reinstating a fearsome sense of Israeli might and reducing Hamas’s threat for a generation.

But the conflict has provided no clear long-term trajectory for either Gaza or the wider Palestinian question. Mr. Netanyahu has consistently ignored opportunities to end the war, balking at the idea of either leaving Hamas’s remnants in charge or allowing other Palestinian groups to take over.

“Instead, we are left with only bad options,” said Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister. “Either occupation or chaos, rather than a diplomatic process involving moderate regional and Palestinian stakeholders that could change the reality on the ground for both Palestinians and Israelis.”

A similarly aimless dynamic could yet emerge in Iran, analysts said, if the Israeli leadership fails to clearly define its goals there and set an exit strategy.

For now, Israeli officials hope the United States will join the attack and help Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. If the United States stays away, and if Iran refuses to stop the enrichment by choice, it is unclear whether Israel’s forceful new doctrine will achieve the kind of game-changing outcomes that many Israelis desire.

“One wonders whether effective military performance is matched by a sober political vision,” said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli official and a fellow at Israel Policy Forum, a research group in New York. “Or, like in Gaza, we are left without an endgame. Time will tell.”

Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.

“I want to say is that we will remain in Tehran, we will not leave this land. Even if we have to sacrifice every ounce of our blood, like a soldier, we will fight,” said Mr. Khomeini. “The enemy has made a massive mistake if it thinks it can dislodge this revolution.”

An even bigger mistake, Mr. Khomeini said, would be for President Trump to enter the war and attack the Fordo nuclear site. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump posted a series of messages on social media, one of which called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He also met with his National Security Council as evidence mounted that the United States was considering joining Israel’s bombing campaign to damage Iran’s nuclear capabilities. A day earlier, Mr. Trump had warned residents of Tehran, a city of more than 10 million people, to evacuate in a social media post. Many residents of Tehran have tried to heed his call.

“Iran will respond in a different way if this happens,” Mr. Khomeini said, in reference to the United States becoming more involved in the conflict. The war would spread, and the region would descend further into chaos, he said.

Mr. Khomeini lives in the city of Qom, about 100 miles south of Tehran, where he attends Shia theological seminary. He is the grandson of Mr. Khomeini’s son, Ahmad, and in the past few years has identified with the reformist faction of the government. He campaigned for the reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, who won the presidential election nearly a year ago.

Mr. Khomeini said that he typically spends weekends in Tehran and was there on Friday — the Iranian weekend — when Israel first attacked. He said he had remained in the capital, consulting with a tight loyal circle of younger government officials. He did not want to retreat to a bunker, he said.

On Tuesday night, a crowd of government supporters gathered at Palestine Square in central Tehran, waving flags and pledging fierce revenge against Israel. A digital countdown clock at the square shows what it claims is the time left until Israel’s demise. Mr. Khomeini said he heard about the gathering and spontaneously decided to participate despite a new round of Israeli strikes in the Tehran area.

Israel has assassinated at least 10 of Iran’s highest-ranking military commanders since Friday. On Tuesday, Israel said it had killed the new top military commander, Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani, in a strike, days after he was appointed. Iran did not comment on Israel’s claim.

But that has not deterred the young Mr. Khomeini. Part of his great-grandfather’s legacy, he said, was to show the public and the enemies that he was not afraid. “I’m one person, and I want to stand by the people,” he added.

He said he understood that some Iranians “are angry at the establishment, are upset and have negative views of the government, have different beliefs” from the republic his great-grandfather founded, but he called on his people to always choose Iran. Mr. Khomeini said he named his 2-year-old daughter Iran.

Iranians have staged nationwide demonstrations, most recently in 2022 that were led by women and young girls following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who died in the custody of the country’s morality police on allegations of violating hijab rules, which mandate that women and girls cover their hair and bodies. The government has brutally crushed the protests, blocked reforms and jailed and killed hundreds of protesters. The demonstrators have chanted “Death to the dictator” and participated in daily acts of collective civil disobedience, like women not wearing hijabs in public.

Iranian officials have long been concerned that a war with Israel or the United States would destabilize the country, deepen economic woes and spark a new domestic uprising. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Mr. Khomeini’s great-grandfather, conceded to nuclear negotiations with the United States in March to avoid the risk of fighting a war on two fronts, against external enemies and domestic dissent.

Asked what he thinks Ayatollah Khomeini would say to him about the current war, the young Mr. Khomeini replied, “remain together, stay united; if you do, no enemy can win over you.”

Fears of a wider war are growing among American officials as Israel presses the White House to intervene in its conflict with Iran. If the United States joins the Israeli campaign and strikes Fordo, a key Iranian nuclear facility, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia will almost certainly resume striking ships in the Red Sea, the officials said. They added that pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria would probably try to attack U.S. bases there.

Other officials said that in the event of an attack, Iran could begin to mine the Strait of Hormuz, a tactic meant to pin American warships in the Persian Gulf.

Commanders put American troops on high alert at military bases throughout the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The United States has more than 40,000 troops deployed in the Middle East.

Two Iranian officials have acknowledged that the country would attack U.S. bases in the Middle East, starting with those in Iraq, if the United States joined Israel’s war.

Iran would also target any American bases that are in Arab countries and take part in an attack, the two officials said.

“Our enemies should know that they cannot reach a solution with military attacks on us and will not be able to force their will on the Iranian people,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in a statement on Monday. Mr. Araghchi told his European counterparts in phone conversations that if the war spread, the blame would be on Israel and its main supporters, according to a summary of the calls provided by Iran’s foreign ministry.

U.S. officials said Iran would not need much preparation to attack American bases in the region. The Iranian military has missile bases within easy striking range of Bahrain, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

The prospect of U.S. forces joining the war has increased in recent days as Israel has continued its campaign, and Iran has launched waves of missiles at Israel in response.

It is not clear how much damage a strike on Fordo would do to Iran’s nuclear capabilities or how long it would delay the development of a weapon. Iran’s current stockpile of enriched uranium is also hidden in tunnels at different locations in the country.

Several American officials said that Israel would need U.S. help to more significantly damage Iran’s nuclear program.

American assistance could include providing air cover for Israeli commandoes who go into Iran on the ground. But, officials said, the more probable outcome is a strike by U.S. B-2 stealth bombers armed with the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a weapon that theoretically has the ability to bore into the mountain that shelters the underground Fordo facility.

Any strike on Fordo by the United States or with U.S. assistance would prompt Iran and its allies to retaliate.

Iran and its allies have been able to harm Americans in the past. The Houthis curbed their attacks after the Trump administration stepped up strikes on them. But in recent years they have repeatedly tried to strike American warships and have hit commercial shipping. In January 2024, an Iranian-backed militia carried out a drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan near the Syrian border that killed three American soldiers.

American intelligence agencies have long concluded that Iran was close to being able to make a nuclear weapon but had not decided whether to do so. If Iran decided to make a weapon, it would be less than a year away from being able to field one. A crude, more basic nuclear bomb could possibly be constructed more quickly.

President Trump has repeatedly said he will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. On Tuesday, he called for Iran’s unconditional surrender.

But the Israeli attacks may have changed Iran’s calculus. U.S. officials skeptical of Israel’s campaign said on Tuesday that it has probably convinced Tehran that the only way to prevent future attacks would be to develop a full nuclear deterrent.

Some of those officials said that if Iran is likely to pursue a nuclear weapon no matter what, pressure could increase on the Trump administration to strike.

But critics of aggressive, militaristic foreign policy said it was not too late for the United States to turn back.

“It is never too late not to start a war,” said Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates a restrained foreign policy.

Ms. Kelanic acknowledged that Israel’s strike had given Iran an incentive to potentially develop a nuclear weapon. But she added that the incentive would “multiply dramatically if the United States joins the war.”

“Once you get involved, man, it’s really hard to step back,” she said. “You are just going to go all in.”

Adam Goldman contributed reporting.

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, on Monday introduced a similar resolution.

Both efforts face long odds on Capitol Hill given Republicans’ reluctance to challenge Mr. Trump’s power, but with some lawmakers in both parties openly resisting further U.S. involvement, they are likely to prompt a vibrant debate. The measures enjoy a special status that will compel Congress to vote on them one way or the other in the coming days.

Still, Speaker Mike Johnson has, so far, been successful in deflecting efforts to force Republican members to take any vote that would require them to challenge Mr. Trump’s authority, and he could seek a procedural solution that would allow him to circumvent a vote on a war declaration.

The move in the House quickly drew detractors, including Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, who posted on social media that “If AOC and Massie are a yes, that’s a good bet that I’ll be a no.” He was referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who was among the Democrats backing the measure.

And in the Senate, defense hawks cheered Mr. Trump’s bellicose posture.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on Tuesday reiterated his stance that he supports U.S. involvement in the conflict against Iran.

“Yeah, I want us to go all in to help Israel destroy their nuclear programs,” he said, adding that he had spoken to Mr. Trump Monday evening about his views.

When asked what role Congress should have in authorizing offensive strikes in Iran, Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, deferred to Mr. Trump.

“I have total faith and confidence in the president of the United States,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.

While Congress has not issued a formal declaration of war since World War II, it has authorized the use of military force through a series of resolutions, most notably following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

That resolution granted President George W. Bush the authority to use military force against those responsible for the attacks and any groups that harbored them. The following year, Congress passed another resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, citing concerns about weapons of mass destruction.

The pair of authorizations has been used to justify a wide range of military actions since then, including the Obama administration’s campaign against ISIS in 2014. In recent years, lawmakers from both parties have criticized the broad scope of these measures, arguing that they give the executive branch too much power over decisions that should rest with Congress.

More recently, the debate over the scope of presidential war powers was reignited during Mr. Trump’s first term after the killing of Gen. Qassim Soleimani of Iran. The administration shifted its legal rationale multiple times, initially citing the 2002 authorization as basis for the argument that Iran, and General Soleimani, posed “imminent threats” before later contradicting that position in a report to Congress.

A 2023 effort to repeal the authorizations used to justify the strike, led by Mr. Kaine, stalled after being sent to the House but drew bipartisan support in the Senate, including from then-Senator JD Vance of Ohio.

A day later, President Trump on Tuesday wrote on social media, “we know exactly where” the ayatollah is. But he added that “we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.”

He added, “Our patience is growing thin.”

Here is a closer look at Ayatollah Khamenei, his rise to power and his role in the deepening confrontation with Israel.

From revolutionary aide to supreme leader

Born in 1939 into a religious family of modest means in Mashhad, a pilgrimage city in eastern Iran, Mr. Khamenei came of age in the years leading up to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah.

He was imprisoned repeatedly by the security services of the U.S.-backed autocrat Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and he rose through the ranks of the religious opposition as a close ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the revolution and founded the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mr. Khamenei quickly emerged as one of the most trusted lieutenants in the new Iranian regime, and he was president for much of the 1980s.

When Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, Mr. Khamenei, by that time an ayatollah himself, was elevated to Iran’s supreme leader. He set about consolidating control of the country’s political, military and security apparatus, and cracking down on dissent to shore up his position as the ultimate decision maker.

Absolute power under Iran’s theocratic system

As Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei sits above all other branches of government. He appoints the heads of the judiciary, state media and key security agencies, and he holds final authority over who can run for president.

Ayatollah Khamenei also controls foreign and military policy, overseeing the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which defends Iran’s Islamic system and sits apart from the rest of the military, and the powerful Quds Force, which directs Iran’s foreign operations across the Middle East.

His authority extends to the nuclear program, placing him at the center of Iran’s escalating confrontation with Israel.

An architect of Iran’s regional strategy

For decades, Ayatollah Khamenei has been at the heart of Iran’s hard-line foreign policy, positioning the country as a counterweight to American, Israeli and Saudi influence across the Middle East. Under his leadership, Iran has trained, armed and funded a network of proxy forces stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, allowing Tehran to project power and confront its rivals without provoking a war on Iranian soil.

But that strategy unraveled on Friday, when Israel launched its largest-ever attack against Iran, targeting military and nuclear sites and killing an array of senior officials.

Israel said the military campaign was an effort to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iranian officials have publicly said that their country’s nuclear program is intended for civilian uses only and have denied that it is building a bomb; Ayatollah Khamenei issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, in 2003 declaring nuclear weapons forbidden under Islam. But Israel and Western governments have long accused Tehran of seeking the capability to build a bomb if it so chooses.

Under guard, and under threat

Ayatollah Khamenei’s movements are tightly controlled and his whereabouts rarely disclosed. His personal security is overseen by an elite Revolutionary Guards unit that reports directly to his office, according to analysts.

He was reportedly moved last week to a secret location where he could remain in contact with the military. That follows similar reports last year, when the ayatollah was also moved to a safe location a day after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and was a longtime ally.

In recent days, Israel has killed a number of senior officials in Iran, including the country’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists.

But a direct attack on Ayatollah Khamenei himself would represent an extraordinary escalation of the current conflict. Such a move could have unpredictable and far-reaching consequences across the Middle East.