02.03.2026

What the 2026 assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader reveals about the death of chivalry at the highest level

Editor-in-Chief of Gentleman Code Magazine reflects on the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader during diplomatic negotiations — and what it means for the ancient code of honour that once governed even the fiercest of enemies.

Photo credit: Freepik

Words: Raja Izz

 

Eighteen years ago, I sat in a PETRONAS Corporate Planning & Development Division room at PETRONAS Tower 1, staring at geopolitical maps that most people dismissed as political striptease.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held Tehran. Vladimir Putin held Moscow.

And I quietly wrote in my powerpoint paper titled "The Power of Petroleum" on what few wanted to acknowledge: the axis between Russia and Iran would one day collide openly with the US-Israel alliance. Not in shadows, but in the full, ugly light of history.

That instinct did not come from nowhere. My MBA in International Business gave me the framework. But the fire came from my late grandfather - a gentleman whose passion for geopolitics and international affairs shaped the way I read the world long before I ever entered a boardroom. He taught me to look beyond the headline, beyond the election cycle, beyond the quarterly report, and ask instead: what are the tectonic forces moving beneath all of this?

When I brought that geopolitical prediction to the senior management of PETRONAS, the room went quiet. They admitted it opened their eyes. One gentleman told me, with a candor I still carry with me, that no one in PETRONAS had thought about it the way I had, that the coming collision between the US-Israel and Iran-Russia axis was not merely possible, but structurally inevitable. A holy war reborn in modern uniform.

I am not celebrating now.

JFK and RFK Jr.

Photo credit: Getty

 

Let me be unambiguous from the outset: this is not a political essay. I have dear friends who are American. The kind of friends who came from the States to your reception and ask nothing in return. My wife was raised near Washington DC, United States. I carry no flag of enmity toward any nation. What I carry today is sadness. Sadness for a code that once governed even the fiercest of enemies, and appears to be dying at the hands of the very powers who claim to lead the civilised world.

The reported assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader on 28 February 2026, during an active negotiation process does not merely violate international law. It violates something older, something that predates any treaty or charter ever signed. It violates the gentleman's code — the warrior's code — the understanding that even your enemy, when he extends his hand across the table, deserves to have that hand met with honour, not a blade.

I think of King Richard the Lionheart of England and Salahuddin al-Ayyubi - Sultan of Egypt and Syria.

King Baldwin IV and Saladin's dialogue explains why this is one of the greatest scenes in all of cinema.

Video: Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut)

 

Two noblemen. Two faiths. Two armies locked in one of history's most brutal contests for the Holy Land. And yet what the Crusades gave us, buried beneath all that blood, was an extraordinary portrait of mutual chivalry. When Richard fell ill, Saladin sent him fresh fruit and ice from the mountains. When Saladin's horse was killed beneath him, Richard sent him a replacement so the battle could be fought as equals. They never met face to face. But they corresponded. They negotiated. They honored truces. They built, between their swords, a bridge of dignity that shaped the positive relationship between Islam and Christianity for centuries.

These were not soft men. They were king and sultan. But they understood that how you treat your enemy defines you more than whether you defeat him.

What legacy are we building now in 2026?

A Supreme Leader — whatever one's politics or faiths — struck down not on a battlefield but in the corridors of diplomacy. The message sent to every future negotiating table is devastating: engage, and you are exposed. Trust the process, and you are vulnerable.

This is not strength. This is the death of the framework through which wars eventually end.

I am a reluctant editor, not a general. A strategist by training, a man by birth. And I confess to you, my readers, that when I read the news, I felt something collapse inside me. Not hope exactly, but the architecture that holds hope upright.

And yet. I refuse to bury chivalry.

Saladin and Richard the Lionheart.

Photo credit: History Chronicles

 

Because chivalry was never the property of perfect men or peaceful times. It was forged precisely in darkness. By men who chose a code of honor when cruelty was available. Richard and Saladin did not choose honor because it was easy. They chose it because they understood that legacy outlives victory.

Somewhere, in some noble office, some military briefing room, some minister's chamber, there are still individuals who believe that how the game is played matters as much as who wins it. I have to believe that. We have to believe that.

The code is not dead. It is simply waiting for men and women of true class to pick it back up.

That is, after all, why this magazine, community, and global readers exist.

About the Author

YM Raja Izz

Raja Izz (MBA) is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Gentleman's Code (GC), a publication devoted to elegance, cultivated taste, and the art of refined living.

Since its founding in 2018, under Raja Izz’s discerning guidance, GC has achieved distinction on the global stage: honored at the LUXLife 9th Annual LUX Global Excellence Awards 2025 as Men’s Luxury & Culture Thought Leaders of the Year – Asia, and lauded as one of the Top 20 Digital Men’s Magazines on the Web by for five consecutive years.

With his signature blend of gravitas and grace, Raja Izz shuns the spotlight. Instead, he builds the platform - for others to rise, for noble values to return, and for men to remember who they once aspired to be.

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