Analysis
Meet the hard-liner who could replace Larijani as Iran’s wartime security chief
As Iran weighs a successor to its slain security chief, Ali Larijani, the choice may determine whether the Islamic Republic deepens confrontation or preserves its narrowing pathways to easing tensions.
TEHRAN — The search for a new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has quickly become one of the Islamic Republic’s most consequential wartime decisions — one that will signal the regime’s evolving strategic direction and reveal its internal balance of power.
The former chief security official, Ali Larijani, a political stalwart, was killed in an Israeli precision strike on Tuesday.
In the current wartime environment, marked by a fluid leadership structure and the unprecedented influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), this appointment will offer a window into how Iran’s leadership plans to navigate what it has framed as an existential conflict.
Jalili and the hard-line doctrine
