airstrike

BEIRUT —  Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike, a move that represents a palpable hit to an Iranian leadership that has shown little interest in compromise after almost three weeks of war with the U.S. and Israel.

Killing Larijani, who led Iran as de facto wartime leader after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died on the first day of the war, eliminates a veteran official seen as the consummate insider despite not having the religious credentials for the Islamic Republic’s highest offices. Israel, in an announcement Tuesday, said the attack occurred the night before.

For all his bellicose comments since the war began, Larijani was also seen as a pragmatist, and observers say his death might strengthen the resolve of what’s left of Iran’s leadership, rather than induce a willingness to compromise.

His post as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council gave Larijani control of the country’s top security body, where he tasked government forces with subduing anti-regime protests in January. Thousands of Iranians were killed.

Also killed in the Israeli strikes was Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij, the volunteer auxiliary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an integral part of the state’s ability to keep order.

“Larijani and the Basij commander were eliminated overnight and joined the head of the annihilation program, Khamenei, and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil, in the depths of hell,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Tuesday.

Israeli officials have employed “axis of evil” to refer to Iran and its allies, including the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

Larijani had served as parliamentary speaker for 12 years and became the point man on nuclear negotiations as well as relations with allies such as China and Russia. He often acted as the government’s representative in the media.

Iranian officials confirmed that Larijani and Soleimani had been killed. They said Larijani’s son, the head of his office and several guards were also killed in the strikes.

Soon after Katz’s announcement, Iranian authorities released an undated note said to have been written by Larijani in which he honored Iranian sailors killed in a U.S. attack. The image of the note was also posted to Larijani’s account on X.

There was no explanation why the note was released and whether it is signified Larijani was still alive.

“We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and President Trump have repeatedly called on ordinary Iranians to topple the government.

Though assassinating Larijani counts as yet another intelligence coup for Israel and the U.S., both may come to regret the loss of a figure who, despite his defiant rhetoric since the war began Feb. 28, was considered by some analysts as a realist.

His killing adds to the evisceration of Iran’s upper echelons, raising the question of who is left to negotiate an end to the war, or have enough influence to make Iran’s deep state accept compromise.

Some observers say that’s the point.

“Why did the Israelis take out Larijani in this moment? Because Netanyahu is focused on blocking Trump’s pathways for a ceasefire and follow-up negotiations with Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations, adding that “Larijani would have been the man to get that job done.”

Khamenei’s assassination, Geranmayeh said, had already empowered more hard-line figures in government, and Larijani’s death “could act as an accelerator to that path.”

“Israel seems to be turning its attention to targeting those that could push for a political solution to the current crisis,” she said.

Larijani’s death would add to the murkiness surrounding Iran’s leadership. After Khamenei was killed and it remained unclear who would replace him, Trump added to the uncertainty by saying that the country’s new leader would need his approval, but also that the U.S. had killed many of the leaders whom he would have deemed acceptable.

After Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named the new supreme leader, Trump expressed his displeasure but repeatedly dodged questions about what the transition under the younger Khamenei would mean for the U.S. war effort.

After the elder Khamenei’s death, Larijani emerged as a high-profile voice for Iran, saying that Trump must “pay the price” for the U.S. strikes on the country.

In response, Trump acted as if he didn’t know who Larijani was.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about, who he is. I couldn’t care less,” Trump told CBS News.

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said Larijani was perceived to be “the last of the competent bunch” within the Iranian leadership — an intellectual who had a complex understanding of the geopolitical reality on the ground, who had negotiated with the U.S. in the past, and who was “adept at maneuvering” all the various parts of the Iranian power structure.

Radd said Larijani “lost that mantle of being the pragmatist” when he strongly backed the deadly January crackdown on protesters, for which he was “more responsible than anyone else.”

He “absolutely was responsible for a tremendous amount of carnage and death and destruction,” Radd said.

And yet, with his death, “all of that diplomatic, institutional experience” that he did have “is gone” from the Iranian leadership, Radd said.

Those left in power, he said, are “generally not the sharpest people, they’re not the people who understand the subtleties of diplomacy, of what negotiating with the U.S. is like.”

Bulos reported from Beirut and Rector from Colorado.

WASHINGTON — When President Trump announced that he was taking the United States to war against Iran, he offered a long list of ambitious goals.

He said the operation aimed not only to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but also to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and defang its proxy forces in the Middle East.

Then he added the most audacious objective of all: regime change.

“To the great, proud people of Iran … the hour of your freedom is at hand,” he said. “Take over your government. It will be yours to take.”

That was a striking turnabout for Trump, who campaigned for president in 2016 promising: “We’re going to stop the reckless and costly policy of regime change.”

But it’s far from clear that the president has a coherent plan for replacing Iran’s radical Islamist autocracy with a friendlier regime. Nor is it clear that he’s fully committed to the goal.

On Monday, at a White House event, Trump reiterated the military goals of the operation, but did not mention regime change — suggesting he may be having second thoughts. However, he did describe the current Iranian regime as “sick and sinister.”

Military experts and Iran scholars are virtually unanimous that airstrikes alone, no matter how destructive, are unlikely to transform the Islamic republic into a peaceable, democratic country.

“Air power rarely produces friendly regime change,” said Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago, a prominent scholar of air power. “Bombing can destroy targets. It does not reliably reshape politics.”

A more likely outcome is that Iran’s militant Islamic security force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, will seize power, experts said. The Washington Post has reported that the CIA also made that assessment before the war began.

A takeover by the Revolutionary Guard would change the names of the people in charge, but it would fall far short of a genuine regime change.

Trump has said he doesn’t believe ground troops will be necessary, although he hasn’t ruled them out. He hasn’t offered a plan for pushing Iran’s theocratic rulers out of power beyond continuing the airstrikes. The outcome on the ground, he said Sunday, is up to ordinary Iranians.

“Be brave, be bold, be heroic and take back your country,” he said in a video message on Sunday. “America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we’ll be there to help.”

In an interview with the New York Times, he said he hopes the Revolutionary Guard will simply “surrender” to the opposition forces it was brutalizing only a month ago.

In effect, he is abandoning the so-called Pottery Barn rule — “You break it, you own it” — that was popularized by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell before the Iraq war in 2003. Trump’s message to Iranians looks like: “I’ll break it, you own it.”

Iran’s democratic opposition is fragmented

The central problem with Trump’s apparent theory of regime change, scholars say, is that the Revolutionary Guard and other security services are well-organized and well-equipped, but the country’s democratic opposition is fragmented.

“Even if the clerical regime were to fall, the security forces are best positioned to take its place,” warned Richard N. Haass, a former top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

Meanwhile, he added, “the political opposition is not united or functioning as a government-in-waiting. It is not in a position to accept defections [from the regime], much less provide security.”

Some experts argue that there is more the administration could be doing to improve the prospects for regime change, without putting troops on the ground.

Haass faulted the Trump administration for failing to work more closely with the Iranian opposition to prepare it for a role in a potential future government.

Others said the United States should now make it clear that it would provide substantial economic aid to a new Iranian regime, but only if its behavior is benign. Iran’s economic crisis, its worst in recent history, helped spark the popular uprising in January that the regime suppressed at the cost of thousands in lives.

“There are more steps the administration could be taking now to help the democratic opposition,” said Kelly Shannon, a visiting scholar at George Washington University. “Close coordination with dissidents on the ground. Protection from the security forces if they open fire. Money, including support for a general strike fund. Assistance with ensuring internet access for all Iranians. And ensure that airstrikes don’t hit Evin Prison or other prisons where dissidents are being held; a lot of potential opposition leaders are in there.”

Scenarios for the future

If the Revolutionary Guard remains intact, Iran experts have described several different scenarios for the regime that may emerge.

One might be called the Venezuela scenario: an Iran ruled by officers from the current regime who have agreed to cooperate to some extent with the United States. This would resemble the situation in Venezuela, where the United States captured President Nicolás Maduro but left the rest of his regime in power.

Trump has already endorsed that quick-fix scenario and said he’s willing to open talks with the newly named successors to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike. “What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario,” he told the New York Times.

Another option might be called the Hamas scenario: a battered and weakened Islamic Republic could stay in power but remain hostile to the United States, even after losing much of its military infrastructure.

A third possibility would be the Libya scenario: an Iran in which the regime has been toppled, and several factions battle for power. That’s what happened in Libya after the United States and other countries used air power to help overthrow longtime dictator Moammar Kadafi.

But none of those scenarios would be the transition to democracy that many Iranians hope for — the more positive version of regime change.

Trump’s search for offramps

Trump, meanwhile, sounds as if he is already looking for an opportunity to declare victory and withdraw.

In an interview with Axios on Saturday, he said he believes he has several “offramps” from the war.

“I can go long and take over the whole thing — or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians, ‘See you again in a few years.’”

“He seems to be looking for an offramp,” Haass said. “He may say ‘It’s up to the Iranian people’ and leave the opposition to its fate…. He might claim a victory in terms of obliterating — or, I guess, ‘re-obliterating’ — Iran’s nuclear program and downgrading its ballistic missiles.”

“But he would still face a danger in that scenario. If it comes down to a physical confrontation [between the regime and the opposition], the opposition could be killed in even larger numbers before. … After offering regime change as one of the reasons for the war, we may not only fail to produce regime change; we could see a second massacre.”