The killing of Larijani, who has either been the real man running Iran, or was at minimum, running much of its day-to-day operations on behalf of the wounded new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was a message to any still surviving Iranian leaders: you are out of time.

Axar.az reports that according to an analysis by Jerusalem Post, although more senior Iranian officials were assassinated over the following two weeks, it appears that Trump, Israel, or both, intended to give the remaining leaders an opportunity to moderate the conditions for retaining power amid the ongoing conflict.

For Trump, at the very least, this would mean the complete abandonment of Iran’s nuclear program. For Israel, the expectation would be that Iran’s ballistic missile program is also curtailed.

The U.S. President Donald Trump said he hadn’t expected Israel to kill more than 40 senior officials in those strikes, and that, in fact, some of the people he had hoped might be more moderate and succeed Khamenei were among those killed.

Iran’s surviving leaders face a stark choice: either make bold, public concessions to end the war, or risk becoming targets.