In February, Ali Larijani shuttled between Muscat and Doha as part of the diplomatic channel between Iran and the United States. On 18 March, Iran confirmed that he had been killed in an Israeli strike alongside his son and several aides. Between those two moments, the channel he had helped sustain was replaced by what officials in Washington and Tel Aviv have described as the most significant joint US-Israeli military operation ever conducted. His trajectory — from negotiating table to target — condenses the central problem of the Iran crisis: twice in nine months, war has arrived not after diplomacy failed, but while it was still producing enough movement to matter. That pattern does not explain everything. But it reveals a structural condition that now shapes both the war and the way it is likely to end.

On 26 February, after the third round of indirect US-Iran talks in Geneva, Oman reported “significant progress” and said another round would follow. Tehran had submitted a written proposal. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a deal was “within reach.” The Guardian has since reported that Jonathan Powell, Britain’s national security adviser, was present at the Geneva talks in an advisory capacity and believed the Iranian proposal was sufficiently serious to sustain further negotiation. The two sides had scheduled technical talks in Vienna for 2 March. They never took place. On 28 February, Operation Epic Fury began. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo alongside some 40 senior officials, including the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

The same broad sequence had already appeared nine months earlier. In June 2025, a sixth round of US-Iran talks was scheduled in Muscat for 15 June. Israel struck on 13 June, before that round could convene. President Donald Trump underscored the timing: “I gave them 60 days and today is day 61.” The two episodes were not identical. In 2025, Israel initiated the operation and the United States joined on the ninth day to strike deep nuclear facilities beyond Israel’s reach. In 2026, Washington was part of the opening blow, after a military buildup it had assembled publicly since January — initially framed around Trump’s threats of intervention over Iran’s violent suppression of nationwide protests. Yet in both cases, force overtook diplomacy while diplomacy still had visible movement.

READ: Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei rejects ceasefire proposals, source says

The threshold paradox

The deeper issue is architectural. In both episodes, diplomacy........

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