Mosaic Defence: Iran’s war tactic that keeps Tehran fighting despite top leaders’ deaths
The precision of American and Israeli attacks is surgical in every respect.
The opening salvo of Operation Epic Rage on February 28 involved not only the Leader but also Major General Mohammad Pakpour (Commander in Chief of the IRGC) and Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi (Chief of Staff), effectively eliminating the Joint Command in a single hour of “Shelter Hunter” diplomacy.
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Now, with the confirmation of the death of tongue-in-cheek power broker and former National Security Chief Ali Larijani, the “decapitation” of Iran’s founding revolutionary generation is almost complete.
Larijani’s elimination represents much more than a tactical loss; this is the death of the “Diplomatic ramp”. He was the only person in the wartime inner circle with the clout to bridge the gap between the battlefield and the negotiating table.
Without a “pragmatic” person like Larijani to carry the message from the inside, there will be no one left in Tehran to answer the phone if US President Donald Trump decides to call. But Larijani is just one name in a growing list of the dead; It is a roll call that implies that the traditional head of the Iranian state has almost completely broken away.
But as smoke rises from the capital’s bunkers, a question resonates for military planners in Trump-led Washington and Netanyahu-led Tel Aviv: How does Iran still maintain its defenses?
Also Read | Will Larijani’s killing weaken the US’s chances of exiting the Iran war?
The answer lies in the decades-old military formations known as the Mosaic Defense. This decentralized system effectively transformed the country into 31 autonomous operational regions; Each of these is capable of directing, defending and firing missiles without a single instruction from a central capital that is now effectively in shambles.
A command architecture designed for survival
Mosaic Defense (Defa-e Mozaiki) is essentially a deliberate fragmentation strategy.
The doctrine is built on the “three-pronged” pillars of resilience: Strategic Depth, Asymmetric Deterrence, and Decentralized Command. By shifting command and control from the “Sensitive Core” (Tehran) to the “Resilient Perimeter,” Iran ensured that no single attack could end the war.
The doctrine, formalized in 2008 by then Revolutionary Guard Commander-in-Chief Muhammad Ali Jafari, was a direct response to the US “Shock and Awe” campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan led by Saddam Hussein.
Tehran has observed that highly centralized regimes collapse as soon as their “heads” are removed.
To prevent this, Jafari restructured the Revolutionary Guard into 31 independent provincial organizations; Each was given the authority to operate as a self-sufficient “mini-republic” if communications with Tehran were cut off.
Iranian leaders have long been vocal about this “fail-safe” design, as seen in one of the first reactions to “Operation Epic Rage.”
A day after the United States and Israel joined forces to launch military forces against Iran over its alleged nuclear activities, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi famously codified this Mosaic Defense in a post on X.
“We have had two decades to study the U.S. military’s defeats to our near east and west. We have incorporated our lessons accordingly. The bombings of our capital have no impact on our ability to wage war. Decentralized Mosaic Defense allows us to decide when and how the war ends,” he wrote.
Araghchi later explained to Al Jazeera that the system was so autonomous that some recent attacks, including the accidental targeting of neutral ships in Oman, were the work of units acting according to “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, peripherals, local Basij militias (militias that have historically suppressed anti-government dissent), and state missile batteries continue to fire based on previously delegated authority.
Israel’s gamble
While Iran relies on its fragmented architecture to survive, Israel sees the decapitation of the central leadership as the first step in a broader strategy to collapse the regime from within.
According to New York Times reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is counting on destabilizing the authoritarian government to create “optimal” conditions for a popular uprising.
Israel’s strategy extends beyond political elites.
NYT reported that the Israeli military carried out dozens of attacks targeting internal security services, particularly the Ministry of Intelligence and Basij.
Also Read | ‘War will hit everyone’: Iran took revenge for the killing of security chief Larijani
Netanyahu framed the airstrike as a message of salvation to the Iranian people.
“The moment is approaching when you can go out for freedom,” he said last week, according to the NYT. “We are here for you and we help you. But at the end of the day, the decision is up to you.”
But this strategy faces harsh skepticism from experienced military analysts.
The NYT notes that former Israeli officials, including Lieutenant Colonel Shahar Koifman, doubted that an uprising was imminent, noting that Basij was highly effective, heavily armed, and personally dependent on the regime’s survival thanks to the Musa Defense.
headless war
This decentralization is not just military; is civilian.
Under the National Disaster Management Act, 2019, authority was devolved to the Provincial Stability Councils.
Led by local Revolutionary Guard commanders and governors, these councils now control strategic reserves of wheat, fuel and medicine, bypassing paralyzed ministries in Tehran.
This makes the conflict “complicated” for the Trump administration.
There is no central “button” to push to stop the drone swarms spreading from the Zagros Mountains because their commanders are not waiting for a call from Tehran that will never come.
As Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations told Bloomberg, removing pragmatists like Larijani “strengthened the toughest and most security elements.”
The result is a system that is less strategically coherent but significantly more dangerous; a “headless” army that only knows how to advance.
