It took 20 one-ton bombs to remove the one Iranian official who could end the war.
Ali Larijani was the person Western diplomats believed could actually deliver on agreements and understood how to give hardliners political cover for compromises.
Mr Larijani’s death now forces Iran to choose between two fundamentally different paths forward.
The Islamic Republic could select a moderate figure who can negotiate with the United States and end the devastation, or double down with a Revolutionary Guard hardliner who will refuse to compromise and fight on.
The supreme national security council, of which Mr Larijani was secretary, is Iran’s highest security decision-making body.
It is chaired by the president and includes the heads of the judiciary and parliament, foreign and interior ministers, an intelligence minister, two representatives appointed by the supreme leader, and commanders from the Revolutionary Guards and regular military.
Like most sensitive positions in Iran, the appointment requires the supreme leader’s approval.
But with Mojtaba Khamenei absent, there is a real danger that the strongmen of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) dominate proceedings and install someone who will not engage with America and plunge the Islamic Republic into further crisis.
The moderate path: Rouhani and Salehi
Hassan Rouhani, 77, the former president of Iran, is the most obvious candidate to lead Iran towards negotiated de-escalation.
While deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament, he juggled his time between Tehran and Glasgow, where he completed a PhD in constitutional law at Glasgow Caledonian University in November 1999.
He has had the job of council secretary before – and lasted 16 years under four different presidents.
He then served as president himself from 2013-2021, successfully negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal – the same agreement that collapsed when Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.
Mr Rouhani is a member of the council now and has both the institutional position and the practical experience required to structure talks with Washington.
He understands Western negotiating styles, maintains relationships with European leaders, and has demonstrated the ability to sell compromises to Iranian hardliners by framing them as tactical retreats rather than strategic defeat.
Under Mr Rouhani, Iran could pursue the 2015 playbook: acknowledge that the current trajectory leads to destruction, accept significant constraints on nuclear and military programmes in exchange for sanctions relief and an end to strikes, and bet on economic recovery to stabilise the system.
The challenge is that Mr Rouhani represents everything Revolutionary Guard commanders despise about the “reformist” approach to foreign policy.
They blame him for the nuclear deal that they argue gave up Iranian leverage for empty promises, for economic policies that made Iran dependent on Western trade and for a diplomatic posture they see as weakness that invited Mr Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign.