Will the Elimination of a Top Iranian Leader Hasten the Regime’s Demise?

The dramatic killing of the Islamic Republic’s national security council chief, Ali Larijani, and the Basij commander, Gholamreza Soleimani, thins out an already depleted and decentralized chain of command at Tehran. It might also hasten the end of the regime. Larijani was sanctioned by the United States, which promised compensation for anyone locating him. Yet he was photographed proudly walking the streets of Tehran last Friday on the annual regime hatefest known as Quds Day. He was killed by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday morning, as Iran celebrated the traditional Persian “night of fire,” or Chaharshanbe Suri.The death of one of the regime’s most significant remaining leaders was announced by the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz. “Ali Larijani had a $10 million prize on his head, we did it for free,” the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, wrote on X afterward. Several Iran watchers, though, argued that by killing such a prominent leader, whom they considered a moderate voice, Israel eliminated any possibility of a negotiated “off ramp” to end the war. “Over years, the Iranian regime has purposely shaped a narrative that whenever America and Israel act decisively to pressure the Islamic Republic, it empowers the hardliners at the expense of the mythical moderates. That’s misleading,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells The New York Sun. Larijani “was just as committed to the survival of the system as the most radical currents,” Mr. Brodsky says. “He spoke in the language of diplomacy merely to buy time for the regime.” As the head of the national security council, Larijani ordered the killing of tens of thousands of protesters in the streets of Tehran in January. “That’s not a moderate,” Mr. Brodsky says. “That’s a crafty regime insider who projected an image of moderation to mask the system’s brutality.” The January massacre was mostly committed by the Basij, paramilitary forces charged with enforcing the regime’s diktats. Its commander, Soleimani, was killed Tuesday in a separate strike, the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman announced. Some 300 Basij commanders and field officials were also killed in a wave of overnight strikes on key command and operational centers of the forces, London-based Iran International reported.It is yet to be seen whether the elimination of the January massacre’s architects, and those who executed it, convince the millions of Iranians who are for now cowering at home to renew the wave of protests. “We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement confirming the Larijani killing. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are fighting on despite major losses of drones, ballistic missiles, launchers, and factories. Larijani, a former senior IRGC commander, was widely seen as one of the regime’s top remaining decision makers after the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei on February 28, the first day of Epic Fury. Larijani is widely reported to have opposed the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father.The elimination of Larijani leaves behind an ever-shrinking group of senior advisers around the new supreme leader. Mojtaba Khamanei himself has not been seen in public since the start of the war, and is widely believed to have suffered injuries while attending the meeting that killed his father and other family members. Ali Khamenei had created a chain of command that was designed to outlast him. Article 110 of Iran’s 1979 Constitution vests sole command authority over all armed forces exclusively in the supreme leader. Yet before his death Khamenei senior issued an order calling on military commanders to fight “independently, with whatever you have, for as long as it takes, without waiting for instructions that may never come.”That writ has guided Tehran’s war strategy since February 28, and allowed a wounded, decapitated regime to attack Israel, its Gulf neighbors, and American bases without a central authority steering the war. A decentralized structure is designed to prevent the fall of the regime, and is guided by a Shiite concept of martyrdom. “When we say we don’t want a ceasefire, it isn’t because we seek war,” the regime’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Tuesday. “This war must end in a way that ensures our enemies never again think of repeating these attacks. They have now seen what kind of nation they are dealing with, one that will defend itself and will take this fight as far as necessary.”

Will the Elimination of a Top Iranian Leader Hasten the Regime’s Demise?

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