Trump is NOT helping. As usual, when he came late to the party he had to jump in and pretend to be orchastrating it and "Jesus intervined and saved the supreme leader, but he'll kill him soon".

Isreal didn't kill Khomeini because they understand the theocracy. If you kill him, you Martyr him, and resolve in the internal tension, making his son the legitimate successor. Keep him alive, and fragment the theocracy, kill those of high position and birth, and succession is less clear and you can potentially turn Iran into a tribe of warring imbiciles. If Trump (or Americans without this insight) inject themselves, they can fuck this up to high heaven.

The sect of Islam that Iran leads does not believe "just anyone" can lead. Shia Muslims believe it should be a descendant of the Prophet, specifically Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, and it's a rather fragle standard. Martyr'ing is a big thing as well. Shia is only 10% of the islamic world, but causes about 60% of the problems.

But Trump doesn't study anything, he just the group project participant that shows up on the last day, drunk, and takes credit for everything he essentially had no involvement in. Iran would be unified if Khomeini is killed. Kill off all the "descendants" instead, and 25 different buck-teethed "muhammed bin goat lovin's" all assert to be the proper descendant of the prophet, and their country falls apart - if you patiently wait for Khomeini to croak.