This is the exact same playbook that Israel has been deploying in Gaza and West Bank for decades to neuter the threat of Palestinian nationhood. They kill or jail the moderates and clear the way for hardliners to take control so they can posture like there's no reasonable counter-party, which "justifies" their exterminationist policies. They want to keep these Arab nationalist movement that are opposed to Israel's colonial project in a permanent state of destabilization and security risk that needs to be perpetually management through "mowing the lawn" and present no actual threat to the Zionist project. Most of the IRI leaders that Israel has killed have been the moderates that could offramp this war and build Iran back. Israel (and now the United States') goal is to have hardliners take control of a permanently destabilized Iran like how Israel helped Hamas take over in Gaza.