The life expectancy of Iranian leaders is declining sharply. Not only Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but also his son Mojtaba and grandson are dead. So, too, is the minister of defense and the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. President Masoud Pezeshkian may be injured or dead, as Stanford University-educated Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref has announced himself acting president. Most curious, the United States or Israel also targeted former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline populist who was under house arrest and had become largely marginalized, if not irrelevant, in Islamic Republic politics.
As important is who the bombing campaign appears not to be targeting: Former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, for example, as well as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani.
The bombing campaign appears not to be targeting [former] Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani ... as well as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani.
The question analysts should consider is why these men remain alive but many of their colleagues do not. There are three possibilities: First, the United States or Israel has either missed or does not know where Larijani, Khatami, or Rouhani are. This seems unlikely with the former presidents, however, as Khamenei had put them under house arrest, not unlike what he did with Ahmadinejad. The second possibility is they are dead men walking on the B List for targeting.
The third possibility is that President Donald Trump seeks to fill the vacuum with one these leaders. To do so would be a mistake.
While Khatami charmed the Clinton administration with his discussion of a “Dialogue of Civilizations,” his own inner-circle admitted his goal was tactical. “We should prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with other activities,” Khatami spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said at a 2008 University of Gilan debate, when defending Khatami’s record to critics from Ahmadinejad’s circle. While Khatami spoke of peace and tolerance, he granted asylum to prominent European Holocaust deniers Jürgen Graf and Wolfgang Fröhlick, an Austrian engineer who argued that Zyklon-B could not kill humans. Khatami’s reformism was about tactics, not ideology.
The same holds true for Rouhani. In April 2009, Rouhani, at the time Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, acknowledged to the state-controlled Aftab News that he accepted a voluntary suspension of enrichment because he wanted “to counter global consensus against Iran,” not resolve the conflict. He explained to his colleagues, “We did not accept suspension in construction of centrifuges and continued the effort [because] we needed a greater number.” The Islamic Republic needed to pause enrichment to expand centrifuge numbers; he simply saw the Barack Obama administration as useful idiots from whom he might win extra concessions by feigning sincerity.
Indeed, for those who seek to imbue reformists with sincerity, the fact remains that public executions and regime murders accelerated under Khatami, Rouhani, and Pezeshkian as the regime sought to demonstrate that reformist rhetoric was for external consumption only. None spoke out about terrorism nor resigned in protest at the serial killings or massacres that occurred during their own watch.
Ali Larijani comes from different pedigree. Unlike Khatami and Rouhani, he is not a cleric. He began his career in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and then shifted into the bureaucracy, working as a deputy minister in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, and then heading the regime’s official broadcasting wing. He subsequently became a security advisor to Khamenei, before reverting to his current post. After the death of Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, Larijani also became the bagman for Khamenei’s regime. This summer in Baghdad, he and his delegation came through the guest house where I was staying while on a mission to instruct and fund Iran’s Iraqi proxies.
Iran is not Venezuela. Ideology penetrates far deeper in Iran; religion is a far more potent motivator than money.
Many Iranians and regime officials, however, describe him as soft-spoken, an intellectual, and practical. None of that means he is not an ideologue. Trump and his advisors should not underestimate the ideology and trial-by-fire that Revolutionary Guard military service during the Iran-Iraq War imbued.
Trump apparently believes that his Venezuela formula—the idea that a quick decapitation at the top can prevent a vacuum and obviate the need for an Iraq-style occupation—is a dangerous assumption. Iran is not Venezuela. Ideology penetrates far deeper in Iran; religion is a far more potent motivator than money.
Neither Khatami nor Rouhani stood up to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps when they were president; it is ridiculous to assume they would do so now. To charge them with overseeing an interim authority and a potential referendum would betray Iranians. It would be a mistake on the level of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointing former KGB agent Vladimir Putin to be his successor.
Larijani would be even more dangerous. To bomb the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and then empower one of its top and most unrepentant alums is akin to trusting Turkey to guard against the Islamic State. Qatar brokered secret talks between the United States and Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez’s brothers ahead of the ouster of Nicolás Maduro; it is likely the Iran-friendly Qatari regime has done the same thing with Trump and key Islamic State officials.
While the Iran Freedom Congress publishes a compact on the way forward, and exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi takes to the pages of the Washington Post to promise many of the same things without the willingness to reach out to others, Iranians should worry that Trump might snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by eliminating the regime’s top leadership only to hand power off to one of Khamenei’s quislings who might promise Trump they can deliver while simultaneously they work to reconsolidate an Islamic Republic version 2.0.
