Death of influential Ali Larijani would be bigger loss to Iran than Khamenei

If confirmed, Israel's assassination of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's supreme national security council and one of the linchpins of Iranian politics, would be a devastating body blow to the country and probably a bigger reverse than the loss of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the outset of the war.

In any attempt to decapitate the Iranian leadership, Larijani would always be the prime target, largely because of his ability to straddle so many levels of Iranian politics and his huge personal influence not just in Iran but with foreign states including China and Russia.

Indeed, there has been probably no greater loss for the Iranian regime since the US assassination of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leader Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad in January 2020...