Israel’s ambassador to Washington told U.S. officials that 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,” Axios reports.

“Khamenei’s killing sets off an immediate succession crisis with no clear answer.”

New York Times: “The first strikes in Israel’s attack on Iran, which began on Saturday alongside the United States, had a central goal: Assassinate the regime’s top leaders.”

Wall Street Journal: “Israel dropped 30 bombs on Khamenei’s compound.”

CNN: “One of the sources said Israel had obtained a photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s dead body. The second source said an official announcement is being prepared.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday evening that “there are many signs” that Iran’s supreme leader is “no longer with us,” while stopping short of saying definitively that he was killed, CNN reports.

Said Netanyahu: “There are many signs that this tyrant is no longer with us.”

President Trump told Axios that he has several “off ramps” from Operation Epic Fury, the extraordinary U.S. military campaign against Iran.

Said Trump: “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.’ In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack.”

“Congressional Democrats are moving to force votes to curb President Trump’s military action against Iran, denouncing the administration’s strikes on Saturday as illegal and accusing the White House of bypassing Congress,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Lawmakers in both chambers said they would seek war-powers resolutions to block Trump from using military force against Iran in the future. They also urged the Trump administration to justify the reason for the strikes, calling the actions illegal and unconstitutional.”

Dan Pfeiffer: “Democrats must loudly and boldly oppose this war. They have a moral responsibility and a political obligation to do so. If Democrats cannot bring themselves to oppose an idiotic, unjustified regime change war in the Middle East, they do not deserve the power they seek.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) questioned whether Donald Trump was “mentally incapacitated” after the president unleashed a full-scale attack on Iran, the Daily Beast reports.

Said Kaine: “Has President Donald Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East? Is he too mentally incapacitated to realize that we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran that was keeping is nuclear program in check, until he ripped it up during his first term?”

Nancy Youssef and Jonathan Lemire: “During his presidential campaigns, Trump reassured his supporters there would be no more ‘forever wars,’ and that the U.S. wouldn’t be bogged down in the Middle East. But with the launch of air strikes this morning, the U.S. is once again on the front lines of conflict there, with the desire to overthrow a nation’s government.”

“How long war lasts—and where it leads Iran—is not up to just Trump or Israel. The fate of a war Trump sees as shaping his legacy is now in the hands of both the regime and the people inside Iran.”

Ahead of the U.S. attack on Iran, President Trump received briefings that not only delivered blunt assessments about the risk of major U.S. casualties but also touted the prospect of a generational shift in the Middle East in favor of U.S. interests, Reuters reports.

David Frum: “You don’t go bankrupt as often as Trump has gone bankrupt if you’re good at assessing risk. Trump tells ridiculous fantasies presumably because he believes ridiculous fantasies. In this second Trump administration, he has surrounded himself with sycophants who validate his ridiculous fantasies. When his fantasies unravel, Trump has a habit of abusing power to force his will upon an uncooperative world.”

“If an actual shooting war goes amiss—takes too long, fails to yield the cheap and easy success Trump craves—what follows at home may exceed all past abuses of power.”

Tom Nichols: “This is not a preemptive war. It is a war of choice, a discretionary war. It is a war for regime change. Many of Iran’s 92 million people want the regime removed. But it is far from certain that this will be the outcome.”

Karim Sadjadpour: “The U.S.-Iran war—or, to be accurate, its latest, and most dramatic iteration—grew from a high-stakes exchange of miscalculations between two men. Donald Trump and Ali Khamenei have little in common except for a vainglorious hubris that has distorted their strategic choices. For Trump, the conflict is a high-risk, high-reward gambit—the ultimate deal, with the Middle East as the table. For Khamenei, whose official compound was targeted by air strikes, it is something simpler and older: a fight for survival.”

“Trump’s hubris is a matter of performative strength. He has based his brand on being the ultimate dealmaker, making military action more palatable to him than even the appearance of having been out-negotiated. Khamenei’s hubris is a matter of ideological rigidity. He sees his theocracy as divinely mandated and has just presided over a historic mass murder to secure his rule. His focus is not on appearances, but on the cold mechanics of survival.”

President Trump told the Washington Post early Saturday that his main concern is “freedom” for the Iranian people as the U.S. launched military strikes in the country.

Said Trump: “All I want is freedom for the people.”