In May, Iranians were surprised that among those disqualified from the June presidential race was former parliament speaker Ali Larijani. A regular face in Iranian politics for the past 25 years, Larijani is now at a crossroads in his political life.

‘The silent man of sedition’

Larijani’s political career began in the 1980s, when he was a senior civilian member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)...