By Gustavo de Arístegui,
March 18, 2026
I. BRIEF INTRODUCTION
The world awoke Tuesday to two news stories that, together, reveal the magnitude of a war that has completely transformed the security architecture of the Middle East and sent shockwaves through Western alliances. Israel confirmed the assassination of Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the architect of all the regime’s nuclear negotiations, and a figure whom many—erroneously—considered the representative of a moderate faction within Tehran’s theocratic-military establishment . At the same time, Joe Kent, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), resigned, denouncing Iran as not posing an imminent threat to the United States and asserting that the war was a response to Israeli pressure.
These two seemingly contradictory events paint a picture of unusual complexity, even for the most volatile region on the planet: a superpower methodically decapitating the leadership of a regime while one of its own high-ranking officials questions the legal and strategic justification for that very same war. Added to this are Reuters’ revelations about Washington’s pressure on Damascus to take action against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the agency’s exclusive analysis of the tactical maturity of drone warfare that is reshaping the battlefield.
II. THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT NEWS STORIES OF THE LAST 24 HOURS
1. Israel confirms the elimination of Ali Larijani and the commander of the Basij forces
Facts
Israel announced on Tuesday the killing of Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and General Gholam Reza Soleimani, commander of the Basij forces —the volunteer militia of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The operation was confirmed by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who stated that both men had been killed in airstrikes the previous night. Hours later, the Iranian Supreme National Security Council confirmed Larijani’s death through the semi-official Tasnim news agency, specifying that his son Morteza and several bodyguards had also been killed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the objective of the killings was to give the Iranian people the opportunity to overthrow their regime.
Larijani was the closest collaborator of the ousted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war on February 28, and had effectively assumed strategic leadership of the regime. He was also the architect of all nuclear negotiations with the West. He was confirmed as a key figure in Iran’s regional operations, with close ties to both the so-called moderate wing of the establishment and the IRGC. His death represents the second high-ranking assassination within the regime in less than three weeks.
Implications
The elimination of Ali Larijani has strategic and historical implications that the mainstream Western media are either underestimating with alarming superficiality or outright distorting. It is essential to be categorical and unequivocal: Ali Larijani was neither a moderate nor a pragmatist. He was the most skillful and dangerous operative of the Iranian jihadist oligarchy. His supposed moderation—repeatedly invoked by analysts in Washington, London, and Brussels over two decades—was precisely the revolutionary regime’s most effective tool: a presentable face for a relentless strategy of systematic deception.
Larijani was the inventor and intellectual architect of what this report has repeatedly described as the tactic of delay ad nauseam: the art of stalling in nuclear negotiations. From his time as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he developed a negotiation model designed not to reach agreements but to prevent them, while Iran continued to enrich uranium with its gas centrifuges without interruption. He negotiated slowly, conceded just enough, created the illusion of progress, and then methodically retreated. Each round of negotiations with the EU3—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—with the P5+1, and with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) followed this same logic: buy time, create divisions within the Western front, and allow Tehran to continue its nuclear program uninterrupted. While the gas centrifuges at Natanz spun without pause, Larijani offered tea, diplomatic conversation, and the illusion of reasonableness.
It was Larijani who convinced Western diplomacy that a moderate faction existed within the Iranian regime with which it was possible to negotiate in good faith. That illusion cost the West almost two decades of futile appeasement. While Javier Solana, Dominique de Villepin, and Jack Straw believed they were negotiating in good faith, the gas centrifuges at Natanz continued to spin. While the Security Council debated sanctions that never arrived on time, the Iranian ballistic missile program reached capabilities that we all now regret. The 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was the culmination of that process of deception: an agreement that superficially froze the nuclear program while leaving the IRGC’s military capabilities and the proxy militia structure intact. The gas centrifuges never truly stopped.
His role as a bridge between the moderate factions and the IRGC was also a useful fiction, one he cultivated masterfully. Larijani served the IRGC with the same loyalty as the most hardline Basij commander, only with a diplomatic effectiveness they could never have offered. He and his brother Sadegh, the former head of the judiciary, were part of the same revolutionary aristocracy that has sustained the regime for four decades. That the Western media continue to portray his elimination as the loss of a moderate interlocutor is not just an analytical error: it is a continuation of the same perceptual error that allowed this man to deceive the West for twenty years.
On the Iranian front, analysts like Sina Azodi, director of the Middle Eastern Studies program at George Washington University, warn that the death of the man who acted as a bridge between factions could accelerate the consolidation of power in the hands of the most radical elements, hindering any negotiated solution to the conflict. This analysis is partially correct, but incomplete on one essential point: that moderation was never real. Power was already in the hands of the radicals. Larijani was their best ambassador to the international community. On the military front, the Basij organization—with tens of thousands of members—is left leaderless at a time of maximum pressure, which could both weaken internal repressive capabilities and provoke uncontrolled retaliatory actions.
Contrary to what armchair analysts often claim, the Israeli model of systematically decapitating the Iranian leadership follows a coherent logic: not only neutralizing military capabilities, but also eroding the chain of command until the internal political cost of continuing the war becomes unsustainable for the regime. The elimination of Larijani does not deprive the regime of a bridge to moderation—that bridge never existed—; it deprives it of the most skilled artist of diplomatic deception. His removal does not guarantee the collapse of the system, but it does place it before a scenario unprecedented since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Perspectives and scenarios
Scenario A (most likely in the short term): The Iranian regime, deprived of its main arbiters between factions, hardens its position, intensifies drone and missile attacks against the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, and seeks to raise the cost to US allies in order to generate international pressure for a ceasefire.
Scenario B (possible in the medium term): The acceleration of institutional collapse, coupled with internal protests, opens a window of opportunity for transition negotiations.
Scenario C (the most dangerous): A fragmented and radicalized Iranian command makes autonomous and unpredictable decisions, including actions against targets outside the region. The absence of a known plan from the new Supreme Leader Mukhta Khamenei, who has yet to make a public appearance, or the well-founded suspicions that he is a puppet of the Revolutionary Guard, adds another major unknown.
2. Joe Kent’s resignation: the first internal crack in the Trump Administration
Facts
Joe Kent, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), submitted his irrevocable resignation Tuesday in a public letter to President Donald Trump, which was also posted on the social media platform X. Kent, a 20-year Army veteran with 11 combat tours and a former CIA officer, stated that he could not in good conscience support the war against Iran, as he believed Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the nation. His words were forceful: he blamed Israel and its influential lobbying sector in Washington for dragging the U.S. into a conflict that, in his view, contradicts President Trump’s promises to end the endless wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.
President Trump’s reaction was immediate: he labeled Kent “weak on security” and hailed his resignation as good news. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard discreetly distanced herself from Kent’s conclusions. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson countered, stating that all members of Congress with access to classified reports knew there was an imminent threat that Iran could achieve nuclear enrichment capabilities exceeding 90%, the level required to develop nuclear weapons.
Implications
Kent’s resignation is the most serious incident of institutional indiscipline suffered by the Trump administration since the start of the war on February 28. Beyond the political and media noise, the significance of this episode lies in the fact that Kent was the president’s and the director of national intelligence’s chief counterterrorism advisor: his assessment of the absence of an imminent threat directly contradicts the legal justification invoked by the administration to initiate hostilities.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, supported Kent’s assessment, stating that there was no credible evidence of an imminent threat. It’s worth noting that the resigning senator has a troubled past: Kent had to distance himself from far-right figures during his 2022 congressional campaign, which undermines his credibility due to his political extremism, undoubtedly influencing his resignation. The most hardline elements of the MAGA movement are openly hostile to this and other military interventions.
Perspectives and scenarios
The White House, according to sources cited by NBC News, fears that Kent’s resignation could trigger a domino effect of departures of officials opposed to the war. The fundamental question is whether there is a genuine consensus in Washington regarding the objectives of this conflict, or whether, on the contrary, it is a war freely chosen by the president with institutional support that is more fragile than it appears. In any case, and contrary to the rhetoric of the radical left wing of the Democratic Party, this is not a rift over the substance of the Iranian threat, but rather over the timing (no one is going to demonstrate against the regime during Ramadan) and the strategy or exit plan. The Tehran regime was and remains a real and systemic threat to regional stability and international security.
3. The US is pressuring Syria to take action against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Damascus hesitates.
Facts
A Reuters exclusive, confirmed by Al-Monitor, The Jerusalem Post, and Israel Hayom, reveals that the US has encouraged the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to consider sending military forces into eastern Lebanon to assist in the disarmament of Hezbollah. According to ten sources, including six senior Syrian officials, two Western diplomats, a European official, and a Western intelligence source, Washington has approved a potential cross-border operation, although Damascus is reluctant to carry it out. The reasons for the Syrian authorities’ resistance are manifold: fear of Iranian retaliatory attacks, the risk of exacerbating internal sectarian tensions (in Syria, 13% are Alawites, 3% are Imani Shiites, and 1-2% are Ismaili Shiites), and the conviction of its Arab allies that Syria must remain neutral in the conflict.
Hezbollah opened fire on Israel in support of Tehran on March 2, triggering a new Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Syria deployed rocket units and thousands of troops to the Lebanese border in early February, calling the measures defensive. Sharaa himself stated that he supports the Lebanese government’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah. No final decision has been made, but the option of intervention should open conflict erupt between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah remains open.
Implications
The news has paramount strategic importance that extends far beyond the potential Syrian military intervention. It reveals that Washington is constructing an anti-Hezbollah framework that is not limited to the Israel-US axis, but seeks to involve new Arab actors on the Levantian stage. That Syria, whose previous regime was sustained for fifteen years by Iran and Hezbollah, is now Washington’s interlocutor in dismantling that same organization is one of the most remarkable geopolitical shifts of the last decade.
Sharaa’s dilemma is real. An intervention in Lebanon exposes them to the same risks that have historically and tragically tempted all actors attempting to control Lebanese territory: the quagmire of sectarianism. As we have noted, Syria has a significant Shia minority (of nearly all persuasions) and cannot afford an internal fracture when it has not yet completed its post-Assad stabilization process.
Perspectives and scenarios
The most likely scenario is that Syria will maintain its armed standby position while it waits to see how the Lebanese conflict develops. If the Lebanese government under President General Youssef Aoun manages to disarm Hezbollah on its own, the pressure on Damascus will decrease. If, on the other hand, Hezbollah offers armed resistance to the Beirut government, US pressure for a Syrian operation will increase exponentially. In this scenario, the risk of a miscalculation that could drag the region into an even larger war is high.
4. Cheap drones are reshaping warfare. Reuters: The West is finally learning how to wage war in the 21st century.
Facts
A major Reuters photo essay analyzes how the US has flooded Iranian airspace with $50,000-a-unit drones, dubbed “loitering munitions,” in what the agency describes as a belated but significant adaptation to the 21st-century warfare paradigm. The analysis dismantles the notion—common in academic forums and think tanks—that modern warfare boils down to hybrid warfare. 21st-century warfare is, in reality, a combination of conventional operations, the massive use of drones, and elements of hybrid warfare, all enhanced by an electronic warfare capability (infantry, air force, and navy) in which the West still maintains a certain advantage over revisionist powers.
The report also highlights the Ukrainian dimension of the phenomenon: four years of intensive warfare have turned Ukraine into the world’s laboratory for drone doctrine, and Kyiv is exporting that expertise with great success to the rest of the world, including US partners in the Gulf.
Implications
The convergence between the Reuters report and the reality of the Iranian battlefield is no coincidence. For the first time since the start of the war with Iran, a convergence of narratives is occurring: the war in Ukraine and the war in Iran are part of the same global war ecosystem. The Iranian Shahed drones that are battering Ukraine are the same ones attacking the Gulf emirates. The Ukrainian expertise in shooting them down is directly exportable. The West’s supremacy in electronic warfare, highlighted by Reuters, is one of the least publicized strategic assets of the Atlantic Alliance. Its systematic use in the Iranian theater could prove decisive in neutralizing the regime’s offensive capabilities without escalating to levels that would jeopardize the stability of the Gulf and global energy flows.
Perspectives and scenarios
The emerging doctrine described by Reuters points to a model of warfare where the attacker’s unit cost is dramatically lower than that of a defender using conventional missiles. Iran spends $50,000 per drone and forces its adversary to spend $4 million on each interception. At scale, this asymmetry can become financially unsustainable for defenders if they do not urgently adapt their systems. The Ukrainian lesson—cheap interceptors and smart defense systems—is the answer.
III. MEDIA RACK
Summary of how the main international media outlets are covering the day’s news:
Reference English-speaking media
Reuters: Three front-page stories: exclusive on Syria-Hezbollah; photo essay on drones; and coverage of Larijani’s elimination with Iranian confirmation. Solid, multi-source fieldwork. Reference of the day.
The Washington Post: Confirms Larijani’s removal. Emphasizes uncertainty about the consequences for the regime’s leadership. Cautious and rigorous coverage. As is typical of the Post, the tendency persists to portray Larijani as a pragmatist, reflecting two decades of ill-informed analysis of the Iranian establishment.
CNN: Live coverage (live blog). Expands on the implications of Kent’s resignation and Trump’s response. Highlights Tulsi Gabbard’s silence.
CBS News: Confirmation of Kent’s resignation as the highest-ranking official to leave the Trump administration over the war. Direct quote from the resignation letter.
CNBC: Double coverage: the Gulf energy war and Kent’s resignation. Financial perspective on the Strait of Hormuz crisis.
AP/AFP: Reports on Larijani’s removal and Zelensky’s speech to the British Parliament in Westminster. Extensive coverage distributed globally.
NBC News/MSNBC: Analysis of the domino effect the White House fears after Kent’s resignation. Anonymous administration sources.
European media
Irish Times: Coverage of Larijani’s elimination and the context of the systematic dismantling of the Iranian regime’s top leadership.
Le Monde / Le Figaro: Analysis of the geopolitical implications of Larijani’s elimination for the balance of power within the Iranian regime.
Israeli and Arab media
Israel Hayom: Confirms the operation that eliminated Larijani and Soleimani. Biographical profile of both and strategic assessment of the operation.
The Jerusalem Post: Exclusive on the Reuters-Syria report. Analysis of the feasibility of a Syrian operation in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
Al Jazeera: Critical coverage of Kent’s resignation. Live coverage of the war. A nuanced but present pro-Iranian perspective.
WION (India): Kent profile and analysis of the implications of the resignation on US intelligence cohesion.
IV. RISK TRAFFIC LIGHT
| RED | CRITICAL | The elimination of Ali Larijani and Basij commander Gholam Reza Soleimani marks the second high-ranking regime assassination in less than three weeks. The disappearance of the architect of the nuclear strategy and the regime’s chief diplomatic operative eliminates the only channel the West believed it had for potential negotiations, although that channel was, in reality, an instrument of systematic deception. The immediate risk is a sudden escalation led by a fragmented and disorganized Iranian command, now without the mastermind who controlled the timing of events. The possibility of uncontrolled retaliatory actions against targets in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, or critical infrastructure is extremely high. |
| ORANGE | HIGH | Joe Kent, director of the NCTC, publicly resigned due to disagreements over the legal justification for the war. This marks the first serious institutional rift in the Trump administration since February 28. If Kent’s intelligence assessment—which denies an imminent threat—is debated in Congress or the courts, it could undermine the legal basis for ongoing military operations. The White House fears a domino effect of resignations. The risk to the administration’s internal cohesion is high, although the president’s position remains solid in the short term. |
| YELLOW | HIGH | US pressure is mounting on Syria for a cross-border military operation in eastern Lebanon against Hezbollah. Damascus remains hesitant due to the risks of Iranian retaliation and internal sectarian unrest. If the Lebanese government does not make progress in disarming Hezbollah independently, pressure on al-Sharaa will intensify. The risk of opening a second front in the Levant, with all the regional implications this entails, is real and growing. A miscalculation could drag Syria into a quagmire similar to the one that brought down its previous regime. |
| BLUE | CHANCE | A doctrinal revolution in cheap drones (loitering munitions), according to Reuters analysis, has been underway. The US employs $50,000-per-unit loitering munitions, while defenses costing $4 million per interceptor. This cost asymmetry favors the attacker on a sustained scale. This presents an opportunity for the West if it adapts its defensive systems based on the Ukrainian experience; a risk if Iran manages to overwhelm Gulf defenses before such adaptation. The Atlantic Alliance’s superiority in electronic warfare is the decisive compensating factor. |
V. EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
What has been happening in Iran since February 28 is, quite simply, one of the most dramatic moments in the recent history of the Middle East. The war that began with the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—the top leader of a regime that has exported terror, instability, and misery for four decades—is progressing with a pace that even the most optimistic analysts would have considered improbable just three months ago. The elimination of Ali Larijani, the man who designed Iran’s nuclear strategy—a strategy of stalling, to put it bluntly—means depriving the regime of its most skillful negotiator, the same man who convinced half the Western world that Iran was a moderate interlocutor when in reality it was a first-rate operative in the service of the Revolutionary Guard: a fanatic with refined manners, a sophist of nuclear diplomacy whose expertise lay in indefinitely prolonging negotiations so that the gas centrifuges would never stop.
It is necessary to state this clearly, given the confusion sown by certain media outlets: Larijani’s wearing a tie, his courteous reception of European diplomats, and his use of negotiation language did not make him a moderate. It made him the regime’s most sophisticated deceiver. For twenty years, the European enlightened left, Washington think tanks , and the armchair diplomats who presented him as a voice of reason within the Iranian revolutionary system rendered an invaluable service to Tehran’s military nuclear program. Today, now that Israel has silenced that voice, many of those same analysts mourn the man who brilliantly deceived them. Intellectual consistency is clearly not their strong suit.
Joe Kent’s resignation deserves a frank analysis. He is right that wars should not be started due to pressure from any lobby, whatever its nature. But he is completely wrong to claim that Iran did not represent an imminent threat. A regime on the cusp of nuclear capability, which finances, arms, and launches Hezbollah and Hamas, which supports the Houthis in Yemen, which arms the Shiite terrorist militias in Iraq, and which supplies drones to Putin to massacre Ukrainians, does not need to launch a missile at Washington to constitute a major threat. The threat existed and still exists. The legitimate debate is about the timing and the means, not about its reality.
Pressuring Syria to act against Hezbollah in Lebanon is one of the boldest—and riskiest—bets in the US strategy for the region. Ahmed al-Sharaa is a rational actor who fully understands the danger Hezbollah poses to the stability of the Levant. But he also knows that the story of those who have stirred up trouble in Lebanon always ends the same way, including the bloodthirsty Assad regime, which has been soundly defeated more than once. Damascus’s prudence is not cowardice: it is political survival. Washington would be wise not to overload a ship that hasn’t even left the harbor yet.
Ukrainian President Zelensky delivered a speech to the Westminster Parliament on Tuesday that deserves mention in this analysis: his identification of the Moscow-Tehran axis (Brotherhood of Hatred) as the core of global destabilization is not rhetoric, it is pure geopolitics. The same Shahed drones that fall on Kharkiv are also falling on Dubai. The Russian components carried by Iranian drones are the thread that links the two conflicts. The West cannot afford to combat both threats separately if they actually stem from the same source of funding, technology, and intent.
The war against the Iranian regime (though undoubtedly poorly planned due to its timing and lack of an exit strategy—the latter of which can be rectified) is not a war of capricious choice: it is the inevitable consequence of decades of failed appeasement. That it costs blood and money does not make it unjust. What would have been unjust is continuing to look the other way while Tehran acquired the atomic bomb. The time for half-measures ended on February 28th. And the world, though it may not yet realize it, is a safer place today without Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani in it.