The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be remembered for oppressing Iran's people, launching a global campaign of terror and transforming his country into a regional power. He should also be credited with an unexpected achievement: elevating the Israel-U.S. military alliance to an unprecedented peak.
Demonizing the "twin devils" of America and Israel was central to Khamenei's ideology and his regime. He called Israel "a malignant cancerous tumor . . . that has to be removed and eradicated" and applauded students shouting "Death to America," saying "death to the U.S.'s policies, death to arrogance." He proclaimed: "The Zionist regime is a servant of the Great Satan," America. His followers murdered Americans, Israelis and Jews worldwide.
The network of terror and nuclear ambition that this malevolent matchmaker built ultimately forced the U.S. and Israel to integrate their militaries in ways that would have been almost unimaginable a few years ago.
The moment that symbolized this transformation came with his own death. Central Intelligence Agency information from a human source pinpointed the location of the longtime supreme leader. The intelligence was passed on to Israel, which sent 100 aircraft into Tehran to attack the target -- Khamenei's compound -- killing him alongside other top officials. That strike was only one mission in an operation that has fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.
After nine days, the scale of Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion had become clear. The Israeli air force has launched more than 2,000 sorties over Iran, flying alongside U.S. forces that have struck more than 3,000 targets of their own.
Operation Midnight Hammer in June was completely different. For 11 days, Israel executed almost all the attacks on Iran's military and nuclear facilities. American B-2 bombers arrived for a single mission, dropping bunker-busting bombs on key nuclear installations. It was a vital part of the campaign but remained a separate piece of the puzzle.
Today, the operations are completely merged. American and Israeli F-15s and F-35s are flying almost side-by-side simultaneous strike packages, guided by shared intelligence. They share the same refueling tracks; hundreds of Israeli sorties have already been fueled by U.S. Air Force tankers.
The integration is most visible in the joint command centers in Tel Aviv and at Israeli air force bases. There, U.S. personnel from Central Command sit across from their Israeli counterparts and strategize. The division of labor is precise: The U.S. focuses on the ballistic and drone threats to its regional bases and on the Iranian navy, which has mostly been destroyed. Meanwhile, Israel is targeting regime institutions in Tehran and neutralizing threats to the Israeli home front. Both target nuclear infrastructure. Senior Israel Defense Forces officers call this Israel's first war in English. The IDF has even adopted Greenwich Mean Time, which the U.S. military uses.
This is a historic departure. For decades, U.S.-Israeli military cooperation was primarily defensive. America initially tried avoiding a Middle East arms race and didn't sell weapons to Israel during its 1948 War of Independence or for its 1956 Sinai campaign. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy sold Israel Hawk antiaircraft missiles. Although the weapons were defensive, the sale ended America's arms embargo. Only after 1967's Six-Day War and thanks to Lyndon B. Johnson -- amid an intensifying Cold War -- did America become Israel's chief arms-supplier, as Israel became America's indispensable ally. Unlike other allies, Israel requested American arms, not bodies, and fought alone.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the height of the partnership was the deployment of U.S.-manned Patriot batteries to intercept Iraqi Scuds. It was a gesture of protection by the U.S. designed to keep Israel secure but also out of the fight.
Even the successes of the following decades remained in the shadows or the laboratory. The Stuxnet cyberweapon that targeted Iran's Natanz uranium-enrichment facility in 2010 is reportedly a joint masterpiece of America's National Security Agency and Israel's Unit 8200. The 2008 elimination of Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah terrorist, in Damascus, Syria, might have been a moment of tactical synergy between the CIA and the Mossad. But efforts were covert -- and exceptions. On a formal military level, the relationship was defined by Israeli-U.S. exercises like Juniper Cobra, which focused exclusively on missile defense.
The shift began in 2021, when, following the Abraham Accords, Israel was moved from European Command to Centcom. What seemed a bureaucratic adjustment was in fact a strategic game-changer. It allowed IDF generals to put Centcom commanders -- American generals who specialized in the threats Israel faces in the Middle East -- on speed dial and fostered secret summits between Israeli and Arab military chiefs. We saw the defensive fruits of this labor in April and October 2024, when a coalition of Western and regional Arab partners intercepted almost all of Iran's unjustified aerial bombardments against Israel.
Still, that was all done from a defensive posture. What we are seeing now is entirely different. For the first time, the Israeli and American militaries are fighting the same war, in the same battle space, at the same time. Israel is acting not as a junior ally but a well-supplied, reliable partner.
The irony is that no one did more to build this alliance than Khamenei, the man who spent decades trying to destroy it. He sought to isolate Israel and weaken American influence in the Middle East. Instead, he achieved the opposite. He created the conditions for the most powerful military alliance the region has ever seen.