On May 19, a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian crashed in the province of East Azerbaijan. Both men were pronounced dead after wreckage from the crash was spotted by a Turkish UAV.
Observers should view Raisi as the personification of the most conservative and hardline aspects of modern Iran. While serving as Deputy Prosecutor General in the 1980s, Raisi approved the execution of thousands of Iranian political prisoners. This led to him being granted the nickname “the Butcher of Tehran.”
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Since then, Raisi has worked to crush demonstrations and protests in Iran and has played a leading role in enforcing the crackdown on women evading Iran’s law on mandatory hijabs and headscarves. While the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia are quick to offer condolences, Iranians are celebrating.
Make no mistake, the deaths of President Raisi and Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian have created a major power vacuum in the Iranian government. Raisi was one of the few individuals considered to be a viable successor to Khamenei. Amirabdollahian was, all things considered, a capable diplomat that furthered Iranian interests in the Middle East.
This development comes in the midst of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, the latter of which has courted support from Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. It’s possible that members of the Iranian government looking to fill the void left by Amiradollahian and Raisi will try to seek favor with the IRGC by demonstrating their loyalty to the regime through aggressive rhetoric towards Israel and the United States.
The death of these two figures has created a crisis of succession and a crisis of capability within the Iranian government - but most importantly, this crash should be considered a minor victory for the Iranian people that have suffered under the Ayatollahs.
Reprinted from the author’s blog Why It Matters. See the original here.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.
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