Following the assassination of Ali Larijani, the powerful secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, questions have emerged over who will lead the country. Larijani was one of the government’s most prominent figures, who stepped into the spotlight after the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top military and political officials by Israel and the US, which began attacking Iran on February 28.
Mojtaba Khamenei has been announced as his father’s successor as supreme leader. However, US officials claim that he is wounded, and analysts note he has never held an executive role. This has left observers wondering about the chain of command in Tehran and who the most powerful figures in the country are.
For now, analysts said it is not entirely clear who will succeed Larijani. Historian Reza H. Akbari, an Iran analyst at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, stated that while mechanisms and constitutional processes exist, specific names might be harder to guess. The increasing number of assassinations could also lead to lesser-known entities assuming powerful positions or even reduced transparency.
Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera: “It might be in Iran’s interest not to name a successor to Larijani, since that would just be putting a target on his back.” However, she said there were a number of figures who “remain influential in both the political and military realms.”
Among the names Slavin said could play important roles are Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former national security adviser and nuclear negotiations participant Saeed Jalili, former foreign minister and nuclear expert Ali Akbar Salehi, former president and national security adviser Hassan Rouhani, and former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Mohsen Rezaie, who has been named a senior adviser to Mojtaba Khamenei.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led Iran for 36 years, guiding the country’s domestic and international decision-making and expanding the IRGC’s influence. But despite having a single leader for nearly four decades, analysts say the Iranian system is somewhat decentralized.
Akbari said: “The Iranian system is durable and built to take hits like this. One of the ways they do that is what has been nicknamed the mosaic defense, essentially the process through which regional and provincial commanders of the country’s military apparatus are empowered to act autonomously.”
The killing of Khamenei and several other figures, including internal Basij militia commander Gholamreza Soleimani, has impacted Iran’s chain of command. Yet, it is unlikely to uproot the government, even as US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have at times stated that regime change is the goal for Iran.
Mohamad Elmasry, professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said: “There’s always another leader. I don’t think this is going to suggest any kind of collapse of the Iranian government.” According to Akbari, it has removed “potential off-ramps” that would lead to de-escalation of the war. Larijani was one of the officials involved in negotiations with the West over the nuclear file and had the influence and authority to calm tensions.
Larijani was the highest-ranking political official assassinated since Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war. Akbari noted that even with Larijani assassinated, the Supreme National Security Council he headed remains operational, and the country’s constitution has mechanisms aimed at keeping the system functioning.
Like many top officials of his generation, Larijani fought in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Analysts say this generation is now giving way to a younger one, which instead gained experience in Iran’s proxy wars in Syria and Iraq. Analysts fear that the US decision to undermine negotiations, along with the killing of many Iranian officials with de-escalation authority, may embolden a new generation of younger hardliners.
Akbari stated: “We inch closer and closer to what many predicted in [Iran] becoming a security state. The Iranian state is quickly securitizing, and many of the remaining politicians and diplomats are taking a back seat to military, security, and intelligence figures.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com