Will Sadegh Larijani be head of state in Iran end of 2026?

Sadegh Larijani spent years as one of the Islamic Republic's most powerful insiders, chief justice for a decade, then chair of the Expediency Discernment Council, the body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council. In a different timeline, his name would appear near the top of any succession analysis. The 2026 war rearranged that timeline completely. When a U.S.-Israeli strike killed Ali Khamenei and compressed what might have been a years-long succession process into nine days, the Assembly of Experts moved fast and moved toward Mojtaba. The institutional moment that might have elevated Larijani — a prolonged deliberative succession where clerical credentials and establishment relationships determined the outcome — never materialized. Speed favored the candidate who had already accumulated IRGC endorsement quietly, not the candidate who might have prevailed through slower institutional consensus-building. Larijani's power base is judicial and procedural rather than military. The Expediency Council influences legislation and arbitrates institutional disputes — it doesn't command armed forces or control coercive capacity. In a succession crisis shaped by external military pressure and internal security dynamics, that profile became less relevant precisely when it mattered most. The market's zero reflects a settled question rather than an oversight. Mojtaba's selection closed the window Larijani would have needed. For him to emerge as de facto head of state now requires Mojtaba's authority to collapse and the succession process to restart — at which point the IRGC's preferences, not clerical credentials, determine the outcome again. Bottom line: Larijani's moment was the succession deliberation that didn't happen slowly enough for him to win it. That window is closed.