Israel is killing the people who could end its wars

In international politics, it is often assumed that wars end when the fighting becomes unbearable and the parties turn to diplomacy. But diplomacy requires interlocutors — figures with the standing to negotiate and the authority to deliver. Remove them, and a war loses not only its potential mediators but the very possibility of a settlement.This is worth keeping in mind after a striking recent assessment. In early September 2026, Sir John Sawers, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, told The Financial Times that Israel had deliberately killed Ali Larijani. In his reading, Larijani was targeted not because he ran Iran’s war effort, but because he was among the few Iranian figures capable of reaching a deal both sides could accept.Coming from a career intelligence officer rather than an advocate, the judgement invites a larger question: does the killing of Larijani belong to a pattern in which Israel removes, at moments of possible negotiation, the very people through whom a war might have been ended?A pattern, not an incidentConsider what such killings actually produce. Assassinating the head of a government or an army opens a vacuum that others rush to fill. ...