After the February 28 assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attention has turned to Ali Larijani as the country’s wartime leader. His position as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), which is the equivalent of the US national security adviser, puts him at the center of Tehran’s strategic decision while there is an attack of all kinds against Iran.
Many observers now show Larijani as a good negotiator with whom US President Donald Trump can make a deal, as he did with him. Vice President of Venezuela Delcy Rodriguez. But evaluating that possibility requires a deeper understanding of who exactly Larijani is—and, more importantly, the institutions of the Islamic Republic in which he has been immersed for his entire adulthood and now ostensibly leads.
Larijani was born in 1957 in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, in a family of Iranian clerics. His father, Mirza Hashem Amoli, was a respected scholar who moved the family to the seminary city of Qom in 1961 amid rising Arab nationalism and anti-Iranianism in Iraq. Unlike many priests’ sons, Larijani did not follow theology. Instead, he studied computer science at Aryamehr University of Technology, later renamed Sharif University, a prestigious institution established by the Pahlavi regime to train technologists. During the politically turbulent 1970s, he remained apolitical, avoiding major ideological movements such as Marxism and Islam.
His entry into politics came through marriage. In 1977, he married Farideh Motahari, the daughter of Morteza Motahari, a prominent preacher and close associate of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After the 1979 revolution, Motahari—then chairman of the Revolutionary Council, which was tasked with establishing an Islamic republic—helped secure positions for Larijani and his brother Mohammad Javad at the state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). Although Motahari was assassinated later that year, Larijani’s bureaucratic career had begun.
In 1982, two years after Iraq invaded Iran, Larijani joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Although he later admitted that he was “not a guard in anger,” he rose through the ranks and eventually became a brigadier general and deputy chief of his joint staff.
His relationship with prominent political figures, especially former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, appeared to be good. Rafsanjani appointed him as the minister of culture and Islamic guidelines in 1992. There, Larijani showed practical instincts, to justify videocassette recorders and foreign films instead of continuing the ineffective ban.
His administrative abilities soon attracted the attention of Khamenei. In 1994, Khamenei appointed him as the director of IRIB and representative of the leader in the Supreme National Security Council. Although Larijani initially belonged to Rafsanjani’s technocratic circle, he eventually switched his allegiance to Khamenei.
Then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right) and Ali Larijani, who serves as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, arrive for a meeting with Russian security chief Igor Ivanov in Tehran on January 28, 2007.Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images
During the reformist administration of President Mohammad Khatami, IRIB under Larijani became a powerful conservative platform, televising the confessions of political prisoners and promoting, with Khamenei’s blessing, narratives that portrayed reformists as threats to the Islamic Republic. At the SNSC, Larijani mocked Khatami and then-Secretary Hassan Rouhani for seeking a nuclear compromise with the West, dismissing their diplomacy as “trading pearls for bonbons.”
In 2005, Khamenei appointed Larijani as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. His strategy combined ideological consistency with rational pragmatism: developing Iran’s nuclear program while maintaining diplomatic cooperation with European mediators such as Javier Solana. Tensions between him and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose harsh anti-Israel rhetoric helped the rebels mobilize world opinion against Iran, eventually led Larijani to resign from his SNSC post in 2007.
The obstacle seemed to be temporary. In 2008, Larijani was elected speaker of parliament, a position he held until 2020. Meanwhile, his younger brother Sadegh served as chief justice from 2009 to 2020, the first time two brothers have simultaneously headed two branches of government in the Islamic Republic. As speaker, Larijani built a reputation as a conservative mediator during controversies, including the suppression of the 2009 Green Movement protests and disputes over Iran’s nuclear program.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani (left) and his brother, Chief Justice Hojatoleslam Sadegh Ardeshir Larijani, sit during a ceremony at the Parliament in Tehran on December 1, 2009.Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
By the late 2010s, the family’s influence waned. In 2019, Khamenei removed Sadegh from the court, and Larijani was removed prevented from the presidential elections of 2021 and 2024, as the main leader he preferred other conservative candidates-namely, Ebrahim Raisi and Said Jalili.
Iran’s escalating conflict in the mid-2020s unexpectedly revived Larijani’s fortunes. Domestically, the government faced waves of violent protests, in particular 2022-2023 riots provoked by the strict enforcement of the hijab law and the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini under police protection. Externally, Iran faced major strategic obstacles: Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah in September 2024, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December of the same year, Israel’s attack on Iranian soil in June 2025, and subsequently. The US is bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Together, these shocks created a demand within Iran’s leadership for experienced crisis managers, paving the way for Larijani’s return to the Supreme National Security Council. Larijani’s appointment as SNSC secretary in 2025 returned him to the center of Iran’s strategic decision-making body. Still the structure of the Islamic Republic it reduces the authority of any officer. Any agreement with the United States would require the approval of a large group of political and military actors.
Even before the assassination of Khamenei, Iran had begun to move towards a unified leadership. By 2024, the elderly leader was increasingly isolated, and his isolation increased after the June 2025 war revealed him as Israel’s prime target for assassination. In practice, the administration moved to an informal leadership council formed by President Masoud Pezeshkian, the Speaker of the Parliament. Mohammad Bagher GhalibafChief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, and representatives from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the regular army. This agency chose not to implement the Hijab and Hygiene Law pass after the hijab protestfear of new chaos. In Khamenei’s absence, it also agreed to a ceasefire that ended the war in June 2025. Following Assassination of Khamenei on February 28the council has continued to govern Iran and is also likely to do so after a new leader is elected.
This file photo released by Iran’s Supreme Leader’s office shows (from left) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Iranian Chief Justice Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei in Tehran on March 8, 2025.ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters
As SNSC secretary, Larijani acts as a coordinator—gathering recommendations from the various security bureaucracies, presenting options to the governing body, and implementing emerging decisions. Ironically, Israel’s strikes eased its institutional environment. Khamenei, whose ideological rigidity once hindered diplomacy, is gone. The same with Adm. Ali Shamkhani—former SNSC secretary who, after the June 2025 war, headed the revived Central Defense Council, widely seen as an institution designed to limit Larijani’s influence. With Shamkhani removed, Larijani faces few domestic rivals.
Yet the big question remains whether he can deliver a deal that satisfies Washington without undermining it survival strategy of the Islamic Republic. For decades, the Islamic Republic has been seeking a paradoxical balance with the United States: resisting American pressure with rhetoric while quietly exploring arrangements that allow the regime to continue economically and politically. Iran’s negotiating posture under Larijani may introduce new developments such as direct talks between Iranian and US government representatives, but is unlikely to represent a fundamental break with the past.
From the point of view of collective leadership, the Venezuelan model may not be attractive. Washington has expressed interest in making small trade deals with Caracas, allowing partial embargo relief and oil sales in exchange for a modest concession. Iranian policymakers have watched closely. What they are looking for is not normalization with the United States, but such a deal, which preserves the Islamic Republic while allowing Iranian oil to slowly return to the international market.
Ali Larijani (center), secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, arrives in Beirut, Lebanon, for a meeting on August 12, 2025.Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images
But Tehran also believes that talks with Trump cannot start from weakness. Agreements offered without extensions invite pressure rather than compromise. So the government seems to be forming improvement of different types. After suffering the strategic losses of its allies, Tehran’s remaining instrument of coercion is in affecting the global energy systemwhich describes a regime that focuses on regional shipping and energy infrastructure.
The implicit message to Washington is clear: If the US follows Israel’s policy of regime change, there will be dire consequences for global energy markets. In that sense, Iran’s strategy is similar to strategic kidnapping. The pipelines, refineries, terminals, and shipping lanes that sustain the world economy become the silent backdrop of diplomacy. Tehran may have little desire to light such a fire, as it would endanger the government itself, but by showing that it remains capable of doing so, it seeks to create Washington’s calculations.
Thus, Larijani’s role is less that of a peacemaker than a manager of regulated standards. Whether a deal happens will depend not only on him but also on the collective leadership that leads Iran now—and the choices made in Washington.
