Opinion | Inside Iran's 'Leader-Proof' War Machine, Designed To Absorb Every Blow

On March 17, an Israeli airstrike killed Ali Larijani, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and the man who Israeli reports termed the “de facto” leader of Iran since late 2025. On March 24, Iran replaced him with Mohammad Baqar Zolqadr. Zolqadr is a member of the Expediency Discernment Council (which reconciles disputes between Parliament and the Guardianship Council) and had earlier held the Secretaryship of that Council under Sadeq Larijani (Ali Larijani's brother) as Chairman. Larijani himself had been among the prominent faces of the Iranian response to US/Israeli attacks that began on February 28, and his formidable professional experience and philosophical scholarship are, by now, well-known. He served as Speaker in Parliament (2008-2020), as a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, and as Advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei since 2020. But this article focuses on a different role. 

Authoritarianism Is Just One Instrument Among Many

Iran's system of government, a theocracy superimposed on a working democracy, has often been mistaken as relying solely on authoritarian hardline instruments in its domestic and foreign policies. But for Tehran's post-1979 rulers, authoritarianism has only ever been one instrument among many to serve one principal goal: preserving the Islamic Republic. Functionally, this has not meant a dogmatic hardline and conservative posture that is blind to popular resentment and disquiet; this would never work for a revolutionary government that replaced a monarchy on the back of national unrest. Rather, having learnt key lessons from the Shah era, the Iranian system found a way to let popular pressures find their own vents; for the elected institutions to oscillate between Reformists and Conservatives (Principlists). This is even as the overall system ensured that only those who ultimately proved their belief in preserving the system's fundamentals held office. 

A Club Of Advisors, Individuals

Crucially, even as the Supreme Leader is the highest political office in Iran, the Leader's choices are also strongly driven by which advisors/individuals are more influentially dominant at any given point, which has also meant a constant tussle between camps. Within this dialectical system, key actors have long performed a ‘bridging role', whether by design or by chance, in determining Tehran's domestic and foreign policies. Rather than their formal positions, their strength is drawn from proximity to the Supreme Leader and the support they command within sections of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Sepah-e-Pasdaran) as veterans of the force. Such actors display their unquestionable faith in the broader Islamic Republic's governing system and are affiliated with conservative camps, but also adopt pragmatic positions on specific issues. For Iran's Principlists, such ‘pragmatic conservatives' are also important to undercut Reformist politics. 

Ali Larijani And Who He Competed With

Ali Ardashir Larijani was one such actor, commanding support from a significant section of the Sepah and competing for influence with conservatives Mohsen Rezai, Mohammad Ghalibaf, and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (each of whom have their own bases in the IRGC). Except Ahmedinejad, the other three have all reflected their own distinctive brands of pragmatic politics, with all four having engaged in significant fraternal political fights across the 2000s and 2010s. This has often caused the Leader's intervention to re-arrange their formal positions and has occasionally also caused public spats between these individuals and formal state institutions. 

In 2009, for instance, Larijani launched a public tirade against the powerful Guardian Council as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, an organisation he formerly headed. In that year of unprecedented domestic political crisis due to widespread electoral fraud - triggering demonstrations termed the ‘Green Movement' - Larijani maintained “that insofar as enough people believed the election was fraudulent that their opinion should be respected”. This was even as the Supreme Leader categorically backed Ahmadinejad's election victory over Reformist candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi, amidst a harsh clampdown on protesters. Larijani's approach to the Green Movement was a textbook example of his bridging role as a pragmatic conservative. For anyone else, it would arguably be political suicide. There are numerous such examples of positions that a hardliner would not have been expected to otherwise adopt. 

A 'Bridge' Himself?

That his proximity to the Leader grew over the years instead of diminishing is testimony to Larijani's relationship with Khamenei as well as with the informal structures of power within the Islamic Republic. Larijani's record of crafting and improving the Republic's internal security strategy (with stronger clampdowns on dissent) as well as his experience in guiding strategic choices (such as by overseeing nuclear negotiations during his first SNSC Secretarial term; 2005-07) also enhanced his significance. 

Consequently, by late 2025, Larijani was formally re-appointed as SNSC Secretary and authorised to lead the crackdown on massive protests that shook Iran in late December and early January (and which prompted Trump's publicly stated interest in attacking Iran). By March, just as the Leader had turned to him earlier to tackle internal threats in peacetime, the system turned to him for tackling external threats in wartime, post-Khamenei's death. 

Formally, Iran is presently governed by the Interim Leadership Council. But given that the system's composite units are facing a moment of deep external crisis, the influence of bridging actors has increased exponentially, with the system attributing them with decision-making and nodal authority. 

After Larijani

Ali Larijani's successor, Mohammad Zolqadr, is also an IRGC veteran but not a bridging actor of Larijani's ilk. However, his appointment is proof that Iran's wartime posture is showing significant continuity, without large-scale changes. In 2002, as the US prepared to invade Iraq, Zolqadr had outlined with striking precision the strategy that Iran is presently following in the current war - "If the Americans attack us, we will not defend ourselves only within our borders...There are many American assets in the Persian Gulf. 60 to 70% of the world's energy is produced here...this place is under our observation and within our reach." This is crucial to understand that the Iranian system as a whole has been consistent and clear about Iran's escalation dominance strategy in case of leadership decapitation, regardless of individual positions.  

What Zolqadr's Appointment Really Means

Hence, Zolqadr's appointment does not imply a drastic, more hardline shift in Iran's wartime posture. Tehran's initial rejections of ceasefire talks, reportedly requested by the US, was a position that it consistently adopted even when Larijani was still SNSC Secretary. It is also clear that despite the built-in autonomy to provincial Sepah commanders according to Iran's ‘mosaic defence' command-and-control architecture, Iran still has a coherent strategy of escalation, which has remained largely unaffected by Larijani's death. This was evident in Iran's targeting of Qatar's Ras Laffan after Israeli strikes on South Pars and unprecedented Iranian strikes on Israel's Dimona military nuclear facility in the Negev Desert after a US/Israeli strike on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility. These represent systematic escalation reciprocating US/Israeli attacks, and not arbitrary decisions by provincial commanders. In fact, both Iran's mosaic defence strategy as well as its broader response to US attacks (outlined by Zolqadr in 2002) represent Iran's institutional (rather than individual) learnings since the US invasion of Iraq. Since 2023, Iran's learnings have been enriched further by Israel's decapitation strikes in Lebanon, the 12 Day war last June, as well as the brief US war on the Houthis in early 2025. These learnings have all crystallised into Iran preparing successors to successors, with the system being built to withstand the shock of individual losses, as Iranian officials also maintain in interviews.   

Iran Still Has Many Actors

What Zolqadr lacks is the influence that Larijani brought as a bridging actor, but he is balanced by other such actors who remain, some of whom have already resecured key offices. These include Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf (Speaker of Parliament and a pragmatic conservative like Larijani) as well as Mohsen Rezai, one of the senior-most veterans of the Sepah and newly appointed advisor to Mojtaba Khamenei. By March 23, President Trump himself implied that the US recognises the importance of such actors. He asserted that Washington was speaking to Iran's leadership amidst an apparent pause on American (but not Israeli) strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, while also maintaining that it is "hard to find leaders in Iran to talk to because they keep getting killed" (in classic Trumpian doublespeak). Notwithstanding the veracity of the President's claims (due to the Iranian denial of talks), it is clear that the Iranian system has several such actors left. 

Hence, the threat lies in the future, if Israel continues its policy of assassinations and succeeds in removing the dozens of remaining bridging actors who command Sepah loyalties and are deliberate and foresighted in their strategies. Already, the US-Israeli war has granted the IRGC several favours, chief among which is enabling Mojtaba Khamenei's rise despite the overwhelming improbability of his candidacy to the Leader's office before Ali Khamenei's assassination. Trump's own characterisation of Mojtaba being “unacceptable” sealed the logic of defiance that Tehran has adopted and turned Mojtaba's candidacy from improbable to inevitable. Ultimately, more political assassinations are likely to enable a more militaristic system domestically in Iran (especially in peacetime) rather than drastically affecting its current warfighting strategy or external outlook. Regime collapse continues to be a remote possibility. 

(Bashir Ali Abbas is a Senior Research Associate at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, New Delhi. Views are strictly personal.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author