Ali Larijani was ruthless and clear-eyed about west's implacable hostility to Iran

"If it was not the nuclear matter, they would have come up with something else – the pressure they are putting us under is reason enough for us to be suspicious. It was a revealing moment of clarity into the state of mind of a man who otherwise appeared to be inscrutable, an impression compounded by the fact that Larijani was talking to us through an interpreter."

"Deep down, Ali Larijani always believed that the western powers were bent on destroying Iran's revolutionary regime, for which he had fought on the battlefield. The prescience of that inner conviction has now been vindicated in lethal fashion as Larijani has become the latest establishment figure to die at the hands of Israel, killed in an apparently targeted airstrike, according to reports."

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's supreme national security council and former Revolutionary Guards commander, was killed in an apparent Israeli targeted airstrike. Larijani had long believed Western powers were intent on destroying Iran's revolutionary regime, a conviction he expressed during a 2006 Guardian interview when he served as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. During that interview, he dismissed Western concerns about Iran's uranium enrichment as pretextual, arguing that pressure on Iran would persist regardless of the nuclear issue. He also warned of potential oil price increases and Strait of Hormuz closure in case of conflict. His death represents another significant loss for Iran's establishment.

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