DAVID PATRIKARAKOS: The seismic lack of Ali Larijani will solely make Iran extra unstable
They finally got Ali Larijani. Yesterday morning, Israel‘s defence minister said its military had killed Iran‘s security chief in a strike.
Last week, Larijani appeared in public at Iran’s Quds Day march. It was a calculated provocation. Surrounded by civilians, including many children, he gambled – correctly, it turned out – that neither Washington nor Tel Aviv would strike him there.
He had, though, less than a week to live. This is without doubt the most significant assassination since the hit on former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on February 28, the war’s opening day.
Larijani, 67, was one of the most intelligent, competent and powerful men – and they are all men – in the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Speaker of Parliament for 12 years, former chief nuclear negotiator and most recently Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he sat at the heart of the regime’s war command structure.
He was central to military strategy, intelligence coordination and contingency planning for the regime’s survival. After Khamenei’s death, figures like Larijani became indispensable to keeping the system intact.
His loss is seismic.
Larijani, 67, was one of the most intelligent, competent and powerful men in the Islamic Republic’s leadership, writes David Patrikarakos
He was also something of an anomaly. Many of Iran’s senior figures are highly educated but few combine a background in mathematics with advanced study in West ern philosophy. Larijani specialised in Immanuel Kant, the 18th century Prussian philosopher who shaped modern European ideas of reason, ethics and political order.
Larijani’s logic was simple: to defeat Western ideas, you first have to understand them. Personally, he was calm and methodical – a far cry from the baying clerics and sinister IRGC commanders that fill the air waves of Iranian state TV. He understood both the language of war as well as negotiation. Above all, he was a bridge between factions – a fixer when things threatened to fall apart, as they now have.
His loss will be felt immediately. From a cold strategic standpoint, removing Larijani delivers a direct blow to the regime’s capability and accelerates the steady decapitation of its leadership. This war has already significantly degraded its command structure.
His removal thins the ranks of experienced decision-makers even further – and these are not roles that can be quickly replaced.
This is the logic behind strikes that are designed to hollow out the regime itself – to degrade it to the point where, when the war ends, it is weaker, fractured and more vulnerable to the righteous, decades-long fury of the Iranian people.
In that scenario, the hope in Washington and Jerusalem is that Iran’s people will be more able to topple the sordid system that has brutalised them for almost 50 years.
Without him, rival factions are also more likely to pull in different directions. That weakens cohesion and makes the system harder to govern. For an adversary, that kind of internal friction is invaluable.
Rescuers search through rubble to recover bodies of those killed during a strike in central Tehran
There is also a psychological effect. If, once again, someone as senior as Larijani can be hit, then the IRGC’s goons will all understand that no one is untouchable. The leadership is forced inward. Their already deep sense of paranoia balloons. Time and energy that might be spent projecting power is instead diverted into survival.
So what happens next?
The most likely candidate to replace him at the top of the security state – even if not directly into his role – is the wretched Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf.
A former Revolutionary Guard commander and police chief, he’s more of an enforcer than a philosopher. Expect the regime to double down in its anti-American defiance – at least in the short term.
Therein lies another problem. Decapitation produces a paradox: decisions become at once slower and more impulsive.
Retaliation becomes more likely. Escalation becomes harder to control.
That is the brutal trade-off. You weaken the system in the short term – but you also make it more volatile.
In a region already on edge, volatility can lead to the system’s collapse. But it can also be the spark that turns a relatively contained conflict into something wider – and far more dangerous.
