Vijay Prashad, Zulfiqar Ali: Israel’s Secret Plan, US’s Silence – Is Iran’s Supreme Leader the Next Target?

by Transition Protocol [7-3-2026].

Sources tell Transition Protocol that Israel's targeting of Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has moved beyond Netanyahu's "wish list" into operational planning — during the very week millions fill the streets of Tehran, Isfahan, and Qom for Ali Khamenei's funeral. Vijay Prashad and Zulfiqar Ali break down why a strike now would be a Franz Ferdinand moment: Iran has privately warned Washington it will tear up the US–Iran MOU and return to full nuclear enrichment if pushed — and Prashad maps the escalation chain from the Strait of Hormuz to Qatar's refineries to the collapse of Egypt's stability. (Key claims in this episode are based on source reporting and analyst assessment; see on-screen attribution tags.)

Also in this episode: why the Gulf Arab states have concluded "the game is up" on the American security umbrella and what that means for the petrodollar; how Iran decentralized the funeral to defeat a decapitation strike; Pakistan's reported role — with Chinese technology — in breaking the Israeli kill chain; the Mossad myth vs. its botched-operations record; and Prashad's framework for the West's collapsing economic, diplomatic, institutional, and technological legitimacy.

Vijay Prashad is a historian, journalist, and director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Transition Protocol is a serious, source-driven geopolitics channel covering de-dollarization, BRICS, and the multipolar transition — now translated into 12 languages.

00:00 Cold Open: "No Longer a Wish List"
00:30 Funeral Week: Why This Is the Most Dangerous Week of 2026
03:02 Israel's Pressure Campaign in Lebanon
04:30 Gulf States to Washington: "The Game Is Up"
07:45 How Pakistan Broke the Kill Chain (Source Report)
09:03 20 Million on the Streets: The Khamenei Funeral
13:50 Trump's AI Teddy Roosevelt Moment
16:24 SOURCES: Assassination Plan Goes Operational
21:18 Why Decapitation Strikes Keep Failing
26:04 How Iran Assassination-Proofed the Funeral
28:40 The Mossad Myth: Botched Ops They Buried
33:31 Prediction: America Out of the Middle East in 2 Years
34:32 The Four Collapsing Legitimacies of the West
45:16 Iran's Ultimatum: Tear Up the MOU, Back to the Bomb
46:33 The Escalation Map: Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Rafah