Larijani’s death decapitates the Basij, blocks any agreement between Iran and the US and gives Israel the long war it craves

Israel thus eliminates the top negotiator and one of the most influential figures in the regime. They have also ended the lives of Gholamreza Soleimanicommander of the Basij militia. This was announced by the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katzin statements to the press, hours before confirmation came from Iran.

The elimination of the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, actor pragmatic and central in the transition After the assassination of Ali Khamenei on February 28, the day of the start of the US and Israel war against Iran, it has effects on the nuclear file, the factions of the regime and the management of the war.

Larijani was one of the few men capable of combine interests between the clerical apparatus, the Revolutionary Guard, the bureaucracy, diplomacy and security, as highlighted by Ellie Geranmayeh, from the ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). Larijani’s elimination is interpreted as a deliberate attempt to close the path of de-escalation.

The veteran revolutionary had demonstrated the ability to build consensus within the Iranian systemto accept a commitment or a ceasefire with the United States. For this reason, says the expert, killing him is equivalent to “trying block the roads for any agreement between Iran and the US.

Geranmayeh goes further. In his opinion, the current phase of the Israeli campaign is no longer just about degrading military capacity. “This indicates that the next phase of this operation basically consists of create a state and institutional collapse inside Iran”.

If that reading is correct, Netanyahu’s goal would no longer be solely to disarm Iran or contain its nuclear program. I would pretend redesign the regional balance in your favor through a much deeper destruction of the Iranian state apparatus, and favor a regime change that is incapable of challenging Israel in the future.

The idea fits with what Netanyahu himself has said. At the beginning of March he stated that the war against Iran could take “some time”, although not years, and maintained that together with the US they were creating conditions for the Iranian people to change the government.

That logic, however, clashes with Trump’s immediate political need. The US president on Monday asked allies and partners, including Europe, for help to secure the Strait of Hormuz. He also put pressure on China.

In response, several European governments refused military involvement in a war that they describe as illegal and initiated unilaterally by Trump and Netanyahu.

The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallainsisted on a negotiated solution. He even talked about exploring diplomatic formulas that allow the parties to save face and end the war.

Hamidreza Azizi, associate researcher at Clingendael, explains it with a useful sobriety. Their argument is that Larijani’s eventual death would not paralyze the Iranian decision-making structure, because the Islamic Republic is designed to absorb losses.

His death makes the system “more rigid, more dominated by the logic of security and, ultimately, less flexible,” both to fight and to end the war, says this analyst. That is, the regime does not collapse, but the number of people capable of close the conflict without appearing to be a capitulation.

One less possible interlocutor

Larijani has been a central figure in Iranian politics for decades. He was key in the coordination between the IRGC (Revolutionary Guard or Pasdaran), and the political leadership, fundamental for internal security and external dialogue.

Its disappearance does not open an orderly transition, but rather further dismantles the State itself. AND further strengthens the Revolutionary Guardin the hands of the heir, Mojtaba Khamenei.

The new supreme leader, whom He has not yet been seen in public. Since his appointment on March 8, he has rejected de-escalation proposals transmitted through intermediaries.

Israel is not seeking a mere tactical pause or a ceasefire, but rather prolonging the war to weaken the Iranian state as much as possible and open a power vacuum at the top, Mohamad Elmasry, of the Doha Institute, has pointed out to Al Jazeera.

Netanyahu, he maintains, sees this conflict as an opportunity to consolidate Israel’s regional hegemony. But Elmasry warns of the reverse of that strategy: if the regime survives, can come out more hardenedmore dependent on coercion and with greater incentives to reinforce a nuclear deterrent.

“Paradoxically, this war, which was supposed to bring security and peace from the American and Israeli perspective, could actually make the world and the region a more dangerous place,” predicts Elmarsy.

This analyst remembers that “there are also million Iranians who support this regime and have an ideological commitment. Therefore, regime change will be very difficult, if not impossible.”

Is a civil war possible?

In January, Western diplomats warned that a fractured Iran could slide toward a civil war in the style of the Iraqi disintegration after 2003 or that of Syria, with rival units and provinces competing for territory and resources.

From the Middle East Institute in Washington, Alex Vatanka says that this would be the most uncertain transition since 1979, because the system is under unprecedented pressure, but not necessarily on the verge of collapse.

Opposition activist and analyst Kaveh Nematipour points out to EL ESPAÑOL that Larijani was a symbol of the regime’s propaganda brutality, a figure that “insulted the intelligence of the people,” and that More than dying he deserved “a grotesque and public humiliation.””.

However, in the Western media the dimension of the diaspora is overinterpreted, due to having more access to its members, so it cannot be assumed that there is an organized and prepared alternative to replace the regime, recalls Karim Sadjadpour, from Carnegie.

Larijani, together with Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij, exercised a cruel repression about his own people.

“The Basij are responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters in 2026; 2022-23 (Women, Life, Freedom Movement), 2019 (Bloody November, gasoline price protests), and 2009 (the Green Wave); and in multiple protests by urban poor classes and students in the 90s,” recalls analyst Elizabeth Tsurkov, from the NewLines Institute.

According to the Washington-based NGO HRANA, some 7,000 civilians were killed by the regime in protests in December and January.

“They will die killing”

In 17 days of war, some 1,300 Iranians have been killed by US and Israeli attacks, including 165 girls at the Minab school, in an attack condemned by the UN. Another thousand have died in Lebanon (886, due to Netanyahu’s attacks), in Israel, Iraq and the Emirates, among them 13 American soldiers.

However, there are voices that defend Israel’s strategy. Muhanad Seloom, a professor in Doha, argues that the US-Israeli campaign it’s working because it has systematically degraded the instruments of Iranian power projection: missiles, air defenses, nuclear infrastructure, naval assets and network of proxies.

Their argument is that critics are measuring the immediate costs and not the strategic balance. This position partly coincides with the Israeli narrative: it is an ugly but effective war.

But will military damage bring down a regime designed to resist? No, according to Ilan Goldenberg, former official in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will stop Iran from rearming next?”he asks.

Goldenberg assures that the JCPOA (2015 Joint Plan of Action between the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China with the EU) did manage to drastically and verifiably reduce Iran’s nuclear capacity before Trump blew it up in 2018.

But Trump also said in the June 2025 attack that the nuclear program had been eliminated. “Without a political framework after this campaign,” he warns, the war can lead to a costly and repetitive war with no solution.

In this same line, Danny Citrinowiczan intelligence expert, has warned that the Iranian system is bigger than a single man and that eliminating leaders can even harden it.

For the Iranian regime this is an existential threat, so his strategy is to die killing. By not being able to win a direct confrontation, it will continue to look for indirect levers that extend the conflict in time and space, indicates Ali Vaez, from the Crisis Group and close to Tehran’s narrative.

The elimination of Larijani does not bring the end of the war closer, but rather makes it more remote, harsh and dangerouswhere there are no democratic solutions for its population or economic relief for the rest of the world.