Masoud Pezeshkian, call your office. Or maybe … don’t. The US and Israelis are listening … and tracking.
The Israelis claimed earlier today that they had killed Iran’s triumvirate leader Ali Larijani, the most hard-line and well-connected member of the council that took nominal control of Iran after the death of Ali Khamenei. Larijani had just appeared in public for a “Quds Day” march in Tehran, giving interviews to state media outlets, while claiming that the Islamic Republic would force the Americans and “Zionists” to their knees. The Israelis declared they would continue hunting other leaders in Iran to bring the regime to an end:
Israel killed Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, in airstrikes Monday night, according to Israel’s defense minister. President Trump would be informed of Larijani’s death, Israel Katz said.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I directed the IDF to continue to hunt down the leadership of the terror and oppression regime in Iran and cut off the head of the octopus again and again and prevent it from regrowing,” Katz said in a statement, referring to the Islamic Republic and using an acronym for the Israeli military. Larijani was killed in strikes around Iran’s capital, Tehran, Israeli security officials said.
Iran’s state media on Tuesday issued a handwritten statement it said was penned by Larijani. The message praised those killed in a U.S. torpedo strike on an Iranian vessel off the coast of Sri Lanka earlier this month.
That’s not going to fool anyone. It may not even fool those Iranians who still support the regime. It looks especially weak after the purported declaration from the Nepo Babytollah, which had to be read aloud on TV by a female presenter. The regime might just as well have posed a cardboard cutout of Larijani.
Larijani didn’t go alone among the regime’s leadership, apparently. In a separate strike, the Israelis claimed to have killed the head of the regime’s brownshirts, along with other top leadership in the Basij:
The Israeli military said it killed Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij for the past six years, in strikes on Monday. The Basij is a largely volunteer paramilitary force that has units embedded across Iran.
Israel’s strikes have focused heavily on Iran’s security forces in the hope of creating the conditions for a popular uprising against the Iranian regime. Targets include the country’s police, the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the plainclothes Basij militia.
Larijani was the real prize, however. Even before the war, Larijani had become one of the most powerful figures in the regime, and during this conflict had been the main hardliner responsible for strategic military choices. The strike on Larijani sends a stark message to the regime’s remnants, Yonah Jeremy Bob writes at the Jerusalem Post:
The killing of Ali Larijani, who has either been the real man running Iran, or was at minimum, running much of its day-to-day operations on behalf of the wounded Mojtaba, was a message to any still surviving Iranian leaders: you are out of time.
In other words, those surviving Iranian leaders either can clearly and publicly make dramatic concessions to bring an end to the war, or they can be in the crosshairs after having had a two-week reprieve, and just hope that they survive long enough before Trump pulls the plug on the war.
There could be additional major assassinations soon if a deal is not reached.
I would take issue with the use of the word assassination. These are legitimate targets in wartime, especially since everyone killed has some sort of military authority. However, Bob’s point remains: the remaining leaders have run out of time and run out of cover, including Pezeshkian himself. Their operational security is inept, their deterrent has backfired, and if they’re lucky, they can still arrange a safe-passage deal with Trump that allows them to exit with whatever they can carry to some place willing to shelter them.
More to come as developments warrant.
Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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