Israel started the Iran war big by assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, the Iranian military chief, and the Iranian defense minister all on February 28.
However, US leaks have indicated that US President Donald Trump had said he did not expect Israel to kill over 40 senior officials in those attacks, and that, in fact, some of the officials he had hoped would be more moderate and replace Khamenei were also killed.
Trump went so far as to admit that the US might need to restart its process of looking for a more moderate Iranian leader to deal with. While there were additional senior Iranian official assassinations over the next two weeks, it seems that to some extent, Trump or Israel, or both, wanted to give the new surviving leaders a chance to moderate their terms for surviving the war in power.
For Trump, at minimum, this would involve giving up the entire nuclear program.
For Israel, it would hope that the ballistic missile program would also be limited.
No significant moderation occurred.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the Ayatollah's son, was appointed the new supreme leader, and leaks have indicated that any Iranian outreach has seemed like an attempt to get the US and Israel to stop attacking without making key concessions up front.
Iran's top advisor Ali larijani was killed in a Monday overnight strike, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed on Tuesday.
The killing of Ali 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 Mojtaba, was a message to any still surviving Iranian leaders: you are out of time.
In other words, those surviving Iranian leaders either can clearly and publicly make dramatic concessions to bring an end to the war, or they can be in the crosshairs after having had a two-week reprieve, and just hope that they survive long enough before Trump pulls the plug on the war.
There could be additional major assassinations soon if a deal is not reached.
Or Trump could finally end the war and move on, having tried another hard push to coerce Iran's surviving leaders into a deal.
The strike on Larijani on Monday shows that the message has been sent, but as the war unfolds, it will have to be seen if Iran has received it.