A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi crashed in a fog-shrouded forest in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province on Sunday.
As multiple emergency services mounted search and rescue operations, speculation increased about what would happen in the event of Raisi’s death, and what it would mean for Iran’s internal affairs.
Fox News Digital spoke with Behnam Ben Taleblu, an expert on Iranian security at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), to discuss the implications for Iran’s domestic politics.
The helicopter crash, Taleblu noted, comes after years of growing street protests against the regime, as well as declining participation in elections.
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“Raisi was a symbol of the hard rightward shift of what remains of the ruling elite of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Taleblu said. “It represents a kind of second generation, in which loyalty and zeal rather than ability and competence were key factors in his political rise.”
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Taleblu noted that Raisi has had blood on his hands for decades, having been involved in the mass executions of prisoners in the late 1980s.
Raisi, now 63, previously headed Iran’s judiciary. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 2017 against Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who, as president, reached Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2015.
In 2021, Raisi became president of Iran in an election that barred all his potentially prominent opponents from participating in Iran’s surveillance system. He won almost 62% of the 28.9 million votes, the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic. Millions stayed home and others invalidated their ballots.
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Although he is in a powerful position on paper, Raisi “has no domestic organic social support,” Taleblu said. “He is really a vehicle for ultra-right consolidation in Iranian Islamic politics.”
Raisi has long been seen as a protégé of Iran’s supreme leader and a potential successor to his position within the country’s Shiite theocracy. But with Raisi potentially out of the way, Taleblu said, “the shortlist would have become even shorter.”
“Another person on that shortlist who would benefit significantly from this is Ayatollah Ali KhameneiThe son of Mojtaba, who is currently effectively exercising power without accountability. And many claim that he is interested in becoming the next Supreme Leader, or that he may also be jockeying to become the next Supreme Leader,” Taleblu said.
Iran is ultimately ruled by its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But as president, Raisi supported the country’s uranium enrichment to near weapons levels and obstructed international inspectors as part of the confrontation with the West.
Raisi also supported attacking Israel in a massive attack in April in which more than 300 drones and missiles were fired at the country in response to a suspected Israeli attack that killed Iranian generals on the country’s embassy in Damascus, Syria – itself a broadening of a shadow of many years. war between the two countries.
He also supported the country’s security forces in cracking down on all dissent, including in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 and the nationwide protests that followed.
More than 500 people were killed and more than 22,000 people were arrested during the months-long crackdown by the security services. In March, a United Nations investigative panel ruled that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab or headscarf, according to authorities.
Original article source: What happens in the event of Raisi’s death? An Iran expert weighs in
