Who is Ali Larijani, the Iranian official who promises a ‘lesson’ to the US? | Israel-Iran conflict

For decades, Ali Larijani was the calm, pragmatic face of the Iranian establishment — a man who wrote books about the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant and negotiated nuclear deals with the West.

But on March 1, the 67-year-old secretary of the Supreme National Security Council changed irrevocably.

Appearing on state television, Larijani delivered the fiery message just 24 hours after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammad Pakpour were killed in a US-Israeli airstrike.

“America and the Zionist regime (Israel) have set the heart of the Iranian nation on fire,” he wrote on social media. “We will burn their hearts. We will make Zionist criminals and shameless Americans regret their actions.”

“The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will give an unforgettable lesson to the suffering international oppressors,” he said.

Larijani, who has accused US President Donald Trump of falling into an “Israeli trap”, is now at the center of Tehran’s biggest crisis response since 1979.

He is expected to play a key role alongside the three-man Transitional Council that has been running Iran since Khamenei’s death.

So, who is the man leading Iran’s security strategy as Iran’s war with Israel and the US continues?

The ‘Kennedys’ of Iran

Born on June 3, 1958, in Najaf, Iraq, to ​​an affluent family of Amol, Larijani belonged to a dynasty so influential that Time magazine in 2009 described him as the “Kennedys of Iran.”

His father Mirza Hashem Amoli was a prominent religious scholar. And like Larijani, his brothers hold some of the most powerful positions in Iran, including the judiciary and the Assembly of Experts, a clerical council empowered to select and oversee the supreme leader.

Larijani’s relations with post-1979 Iran’s revolutionary elite were also personal. At the age of 20, he married Faridah Motahari, daughter of Morteza Motahari, a close confidant of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Despite his family’s conservative religious roots, his children have had diverse trajectories. His daughter, Fatemeh, a medical graduate from Tehran University, completed her specialization at Cleveland State University in Ohio, US.

A mathematician is a philosopher

Like many of his peers from religious seminaries, Larijani also has a secular educational background.

In 1979, he received a master’s degree in mathematics and computer science from Sharif University of Technology. He later completed master’s and doctoral degrees in Western philosophy from the University of Tehran, writing a thesis on Kant.

But his political stances are the focus of his career.

After the 1979 revolution, he joined the IRGC in the early 1980s, served as Minister of Culture under President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani between 1994 and 1997, and then as head of the State Broadcasting Corporation (IRIB) from 1994 to 2004, before transitioning to the government. Restrictive policies drive Iranian youth towards foreign media.

Between 2008 and 2020, he served as Speaker of Parliament (Majlis) for three consecutive terms, playing a key role in shaping domestic and foreign policy.

Return to the security layer

Larijani ran for president as a conservative candidate in 2005, but did not enter the second round. In the same year, he was appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the country’s chief nuclear negotiator.

He resigned from those posts in 2007 after distancing himself from then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nuclear policies.

Larijani entered parliament in 2008, winning a seat to represent the religious center of Qom and becoming speaker. This allowed Larijani to grow in influence and he maintained his connection to the nuclear file, securing parliamentary approval of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

After stepping down as parliamentary speaker and member of parliament in 2020, Larijani attempted to run for the presidency for a second time in the 2021 elections. But this time, the Guardian Council, which vets the candidates, disqualified him. He was disqualified again when he tried to contest the 2024 presidential election.

The Guardian Council gave no reason for the disqualification, but analysts viewed the 2021 move as a way for the establishment to clear the field for hardline Ibrahim Raisi, who won the election. Larijani criticized the 2024 disqualification as “non-transparent”.

But he returned to an influential position in August 2025 when he was reappointed Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council by President Masoud Pezheshkian.

After coming to the post, his stance is firm. In October 2025, reports emerged that Larijani had canceled a cooperation agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), declaring that the agency’s reports were “no longer effective”.

Diplomacy in the midst of war

Despite that hardline stance, Larijani is generally considered pragmatic and someone within the Iranian establishment who might be willing to compromise because of his past role in supporting the 2015 nuclear deal.

Just weeks before the current escalation, Larijani was reportedly engaged in indirect talks with the US.

In February, during the Oman mediation talks, he said Tehran had not received a specific offer from Washington and accused Israel of trying to sabotage the diplomatic channel to “provoke war”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera before the US and Israel’s attack on Iran, Larijani described his country’s position in the talks as “positive”, saying the US realized the military option was not viable. “Resorting to negotiation is the rational course,” he said at the time.

However, the airstrikes that began on February 28 have shattered the diplomatic window.

In his latest speech, Larijani assured the nation that plans are in place to arrange leadership succession according to the constitution. He warned the US that it was delusional to think that killing leaders would destabilize Iran.

“We do not intend to attack regional countries,” he clarified, “but we are targeting any bases used by the United States”.

The more pragmatic tone seems to have disappeared – for now. Larijani, who said on Monday that Iran “will not negotiate” with Washington, rejected media reports that he wanted new talks with the US.

Instead, with Khamenei gone and the region on edge, Larijani has promised the US and Israel a response “with a force they have never experienced before.”