Ali Larijani — the philosopher who seeks vengeance

On March 1, a day after the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran, Donald Trump said in an interview that the Iranian leaders wanted to resume negotiations. “I have agreed to talk,” he said. A response came swiftly from Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. “We will not negotiate with the Americans,” he wrote in a social media post.

“You have set ablaze the hearts of the Iranian people,” he said in an interview, referring to the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. “We will burn the hearts of our enemies.”

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In the days that followed, the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran. Mr. Trump asked the Iranians to take over state institutions. It did not happen. Iran retaliated by launching missiles at American bases in the Persian Gulf, and Israel. On March 6, both President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was not immediately seeking a ceasefire. Mr. Trump then demanded “an unconditional surrender”.

As the war unfolds with regional implications, Mr. Larijani has emerged as a defiant face and voice of the Islamic Republic. The Security Council he leads is one of the most important institutions of the state, especially during wartime. Founded in 1989 under the revised Constitution, the Council’s main responsibility is to define defence and national security policies. The secretary of the Security Council is roughly the equivalent of the National Security Adviser of India.

Mr. Larijani came of age during the tremulous years of pre-revolutionary Iran. His father, Grand Ayatollah Hashem Amoli, a renowned Shia cleric, fled to Iraq in the 1930s to avoid persecution under the Shah. Ali Larijani was born in Najaf, the central Iraqi city that hosts the tomb of Imam Ali, in 1958. The Larijanis moved back to Iran in 1960. Ali Larijani studied in a religious seminary in Qom and got a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Aryamehr University of Technology, Tehran. For his Master’s and Ph.D., he switched to Western philosophy. According to a profile of Mr. Larijani on the University of Tehran website, he has published three books on Immanuel Kant (all in Farsi) — The Mathematical Method in Kant’s Philosophy, Metaphysics and the Exact Sciences in Kant’s Philosophy, and Intuition and Synthetic A Priori Judgments in Kant’s Philosophy. He has written a book on Descartes’s Discourse on the Method. He has additionally written about Saul Kripke — the American philosopher of language and modal logic — and David Lewis, the analytical metaphysician.

#### A member of the elite

But in Iran, the philosopher found refuge in revolution. Like many of his peers who were inspired by the 1979 revolution, Mr. Larijani joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the paramilitary organisation founded by Ayatollah Khomeini soon after the Shah was toppled.

For Mr. Larijani, the years with the IRGC became the foundation of a long career in Iran’s security and political establishment. During the administration of President Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97), he was appointed Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance. In 1994, he became the Director-General of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), an arm of the Office of the Supreme Leader. This role brought him closer to the Leader (Rahbar), Ayatollah Khamenei. That was the beginning of a long relationship between the Imam and the philosopher. By the turn of the century, Mr. Larijani had become one of the key figures of the elite of the Republic

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the conservative politician who became President in 2005, appointed Mr. Larijani head of the Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator. As a nuclear negotiator, he sent mixed signals. He once likened European incentives to abandon Iran’s nuclear programme to “exchanging a pearl for a candy bar”. But the same Mr. Larijani quit the Security Council in 2007 amid disagreements with Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose hardline policies had deepened Iran’s global isolation. It was a rare public rupture in the conservative camp. After falling out with Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Larijani moved to parliamentary politics. In 2008, he got elected to the Majles and became Speaker, a position he would hold till 2020. When Hassan Rouhani pursued nuclear talks with the U.S. and signed a deal in 2015, Mr. Larijani, as Speaker, provided the much-needed legislative support for the President. When the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal, was put to debate in the Majles, Mr. Larijani gave just 20 minutes to discuss it for Parliament’s 290 members, before pushing it through.

In domestic politics, he has been associated with the principalist (hardline) camp. He was supported by the Islamic Society of Engineers, a principalist political organisation. In 2005, when he stood for the presidential elections for the first time, his bid was supported by the Council for Coordination of the Forces of the Revolution, an umbrella group of conservative organisations. He finished sixth, winning only 5.94% of the votes, but became the Security Council Secretary. In 2021 and 2024, he registered for the presidential election, but his nomination was rejected by the powerful Guardian Council. But Masoud Pezeshkian, who won the 2024 presidential election, brought Mr. Larijani back as the Security Council Secretary.

#### Security czar

For years, Iran had built a sprawling network of allies in West Asia both as a deterrent and as an offensive strategy. The champion of this forward defence was Qassem Soleimani, the Quds Force General who was assassinated by the U.S. in January 2020. That was a big blow to Iran. When Gen. Soleimani was killed, Mr. Larijani warned that the killing would alter the political balance of the region. “The response to Haj Qassem Soleimani’s blood should be measures to make American forces flee from the region,” he said, according to Tehran Times.

In April 2025, amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran, Mr. Larijani said if attacked, Iran would have “no choice” but to get nuclear weapons. “We are not moving towards nuclear weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself,” he said. Two months later, Israel started bombing Iran, triggering the 12-day war. The U.S. joined Israel on June 22 in bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In June, Mr. Trump declared victory, but the crisis was far from over. Mr. Larijani endorsed the nuclear talks that opened in January 2026 following protests in Iran. The U.S. and Iran held three rounds of talks. On February 27, Oman’s Foreign Minister who was mediating the talks, said a deal was within reach. Within hours the U.S. and Israel launched the war.

Amid war and a political vacuum, a furious Iran responded with its drones and ballistic missiles. “The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hellish international oppressors,” Mr. Larijani said. Eight days into the war, Iran has been hit hard by the U.S. and Israel. Tehran has retaliated by escalating its attacks across the region. The IRGC, the revolutionary force where Mr. Larijani cut his teeth, has warned of a “prolonged war”.

During the administration of President Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97), Ali Larijani was appointed Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance

Opinion | Israel, the U.S. and a war to build a unipolar West Asia

He contested the 2005 presidential election and finished sixth. But post-polls, he was appointed secretary of the Security Council

He registered for presidential elections in 2021 and 2024, but was rejected by the Guardian Council. After the 2024 election, he was brought back to the Security Council

Published - March 07, 2026 06:34 pm IST

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