The precision of the American and Israeli strikes has been, by all accounts, surgical.
The February 28 opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury claimed not only the Leader but Maj. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour (IRGC Commander-in-Chief) and Maj Gen Abdolrahim Mousavi (Chief of the General Staff), effectively wiping out the Joint Command in a single hour of “Bunker Buster” diplomacy.
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Now, with the confirmed death of Ali Larijani, the silver-tongued backroom powerbroker and former National Security Chief, the “decapitation” of Iran’s founding revolutionary generation is nearly complete.
The elimination of Larijani represents more than just a tactical loss; it is the death of the “Diplomatic off-ramp.” He was the sole figure in the wartime inner circle with the clout to bridge the gap between the battlefield and the negotiating table.
Without a “pragmatic” insider like Larijani to carry a message, there is no one left in Tehran to answer the phone if US President Donald Trump decides to ring.But Larijani is just one name on a growing list of the deceased, a roll call that suggests the traditional head of the Iranian state has been all but severed.
Yet, as smoke rises from the bunkers of the capital, a question echoes for military planners in Trump-led Washington and Netanyahu-chaired Tel Aviv: How is Iran still maintaining its defence?
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The answer lies in a decades-old military contingency known as the Mosaic Defence. This decentralised system has effectively turned the country into 31 autonomous operational zones, each capable of governing, defending, and firing missiles without a single directive from a central capital that is now effectively in shambles.
A command architecture designed to survive
At its core, the Mosaic Defence (Defa-e Mozaiki) is a strategy of intentional fragmentation.
The doctrine is built on “three-pronged” pillars of resilience: Strategic Depth, Asymmetric Deterrence, and Decentralised Command. By moving command-and-control away from the “Vulnerable Center” (Tehran) and into the “Resilient Periphery,” Iran has ensured that no single strike can end the war.
Formalised in 2008 by then-IRGC Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Ali Jafari, the doctrine was a direct response to the “Shock and Awe” campaigns of the US in Saddam Hussein-led Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Tehran observed that highly centralised regimes collapsed the moment their “head” was removed.
To prevent this, Jafari restructured the IRGC into 31 independent provincial corps, each granted the authority to operate as a self-contained “mini-republic” if communications with Tehran were severed.
Iranian leaders have long been vocal about this “fail-safe” design, as reflected in one of the first responses to “Operation Epic Fury.”
A day after the US and Israel joined forces to launch their military might on Iran for alleged nuclear activities, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi famously codified this Mosaic Defence in a post on X.
“We’ve had two decades to study defeats of the US military to our immediate east and west. We’ve incorporated lessons accordingly. Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war. The Decentralised Mosaic Defence enables us to decide when — and how — the war will end,” he wrote.
Araghchi later clarified to Al Jazeera that the system is so autonomous that some recent strikes, including the accidental targeting of neutral vessels in Oman, were the work of units acting on “general instructions given to them in advance” rather than direct real-time orders.
This “Ghost Bureaucracy” ensures that even when the central nervous system is hit, the peripheral limbs, the local Basij militias (militia that has historically quashed anti-government dissent) and provincial missile batteries, continue to fire based on pre-delegated authority.
Israel’s gamble
While Iran relies on its fragmented architecture to survive, Israel views the decapitation of the central leadership as the first step in a broader strategy to collapse the regime from within.
According to reports from the New York Times, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is banking on the destabilisation of the authoritarian government to create the “optimal” conditions for a popular uprising.
The Israeli strategy extends beyond the political elite.
The NYT reports that the Israeli military has launched dozens of strikes on internal security services, specifically targeting the Ministry of Intelligence and the Basij.
Also Read | ‘War will hit all’: Iran vows revenge for security chief Larijani’s killing
Netanyahu has framed the air campaign as a message of liberation to the Iranian people.
“The moment you can come out for freedom is getting closer,” he said last week, according to the NYT. “We are standing beside you and helping you. But at the end of the day, it’s up to you.”
However, this strategy faces stiff scepticism from seasoned military analysts.
The NYT notes that former Israeli officials, including Lt. Col. Shahar Koifman, doubt a revolt is imminent, pointing out that the Basij are highly effective, heavily armed, and personally dependent on the regime’s survival owing to the Mosaic Defence.
War without a head
This decentralisation isn’t just military; it is civil.
Under the National Disaster Management Law of 2019, power has devolved to Provincial Stability Councils.
These councils, led by local IRGC commanders and governors, now control the strategic reserves of wheat, fuel, and medicine, bypassing the paralysed ministries in Tehran.
This makes the conflict “messy” for the Trump administration.
There is no central “button” to press to stop the drone swarms emanating from the Zagros Mountains, because the commanders of those swarms aren’t waiting for a call from Tehran that will never come.
As Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations noted to Bloomberg, the removal of pragmatists like Larijani has “empowered the most hardline and security elements.”
The result is a system that is less strategically coherent but significantly more dangerous – a “headless” military that only knows how to move forward.
