Who Is Ali Larijani, Iran’s De Facto Head Now Leading War Against US, Israel?

Last Updated:March 04, 2026, 16:56 IST

Ali Larijani- Iran's top national security official- is now at the centre of Tehran's response to its gravest crisis since the 1979 revolution.

With US-Israeli airstrikes having killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian commanders, a veteran politician with a philosopher’s education and a powerbroker’s instincts has stepped into the vacuum. Ali Larijani- Iran’s top national security official- is now at the centre of Tehran’s response to its gravest crisis since the 1979 revolution.

Who Is Ali Larijani?

Born on June 3, 1958, in Najaf, Iraq, to a wealthy family originally from Amol, Ali Larijani belongs to one of the most formidable political dynasties in Iran. Time magazine described the Larijani family, in 2009, as the “Kennedys of Iran." His father was a grand ayatollah. His brother Sadeq Ardeshir Larijani rose to the ayatollah rank and ran Iran’s judiciary between 2009 and 2019. Another brother, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, served as a senior foreign policy adviser to the late Khamenei himself.

His personal ties to the revolutionary elite run equally deep. At age 20, Ali Larijani married Farideh Motahari, the daughter of Morteza Motahhari- a close confidant of Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini and his aide during the 1979 revolution. Despite his family’s conservative religious roots, Ali Larijani’s own trajectory was strikingly diverse.

He joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1981 and served as a commander during the early years of the Iran-Iraq war. He also attended a religious seminary but then pursued a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Sharif University of Technology, before completing both a master’s and a doctorate in Western philosophy from the University of Tehran. His doctoral thesis focused on the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

How Did Ali Larijani Build His Political Career?

Ali Larijani’s route to power ran through Iran’s cultural and media apparatus before moving into high politics. He served as Iran’s culture minister in his mid-thirties and in 1994 was appointed by Khamenei to head the state broadcaster IRIB- a post he held for a decade.

During that period, he wielded the broadcaster as a pro-government tool, overseeing programmes that publicly branded anti-regime intellectuals as Western-funded traitors. Reformists accused his restrictive policies of driving Iranian youth toward foreign media.

He first ran for president in 2005 but received less than 6% of the vote and never made it to the runoff, with the election going to hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That same year, however, he was appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the country’s chief nuclear negotiator- a role that placed him at the heart of Iran’s dealings with the world. He resigned in 2007 over apparent differences with Ahmadinejad’s nuclear policies.

Ali Larijani then entered parliament in 2008, winning a seat to represent the religious centre of Qom, and became speaker- a position he held for three consecutive terms until 2020.

During that time, he played a key role in securing parliamentary approval for the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, between Iran and six world powers including the US, China, Russia, Germany, the UK and France. The deal was later torn up by Donald Trump during his first term in 2018. In 2020, Ali Larijani was also put in charge of overseeing a 25-year strategic cooperation deal with China, which projected $400 billion in Chinese investment into Iran’s energy sector.

How Did Ali Larijani Return To Power?

In August 2025, Ali Larijani was reappointed as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, restoring him to Iran’s top security post in the wake of a 12-day war with Israel. In the months that followed, his authority and access to Khamenei appeared to overshadow even the president’s. He repeatedly travelled to Moscow, acting as Khamenei’s envoy to Vladimir Putin. In October 2025, he cancelled a cooperation agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, declaring that its reports were “no longer effective."

Just weeks before the current escalation, he was engaged in indirect negotiations with the US, mediated by Oman. In an interview with Al Jazeera days before the strikes began, he described Iran’s position on talks as “positive" and said resorting to negotiation was “a rational path."

That tone has since been abandoned. Within 24 hours of the strikes that killed Khamenei, Ali Larijani appeared on state television with a message of fire.

“America and the Zionist regime have set the heart of the Iranian nation ablaze," he said, adding, “We will burn their hearts." He flatly rejected Trump’s suggestion that Iranian leaders wanted to talk, posting on X, “We will not negotiate with the United States."

He has since promised a response delivered with “a force that they have never experienced before."

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