Even before the confirmation of Iran security chief Ali Larijani’s death, the war in Iran was escalating. In a sign of Iran’s continued defiance after more than two weeks of war, an unnamed senior Iranian official told Reuters that young Mojtaba Khamenei had rejected proposals conveyed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States.” The official said Mojtaba Khamenei had held his first foreign policy session since being named supreme leader, and had declared that it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, told Al Jazeera in a March 18 interview that Iran’s political system remains strong, despite the killings of so many top leaders. “I do not know why the Americans and the Israelis still have not understood this point: The Islamic Republic of Iran has a strong political structure with established political, economic and social institutions,” he said. “The presence or absence of a single individual does not affect this structure,” he added.
