-Analysis-
In politics, sudden events can lead to unexpected and sometimes fundamental changes. The death of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, may indeed be one such event, with implications for the Islamic Republic on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts.
We can consider the event from two basic perspectives. One is the question of who will succeed Ali Khamenei as the regime’s Supreme Leader; and secondly, how will or won’t the country wind up interacting with the West to overcome the socio-political and economic impasse it has run itself into over the past decade or more.
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My belief is that the second question is of greater importance, but I will start with the first: yes, Raisi’s death will accentuate the succession “crisis,” certainly in the next 50 days or so before another president is elected. It was already a critical issue even before the sudden death of the nation’s president and foreign minister in Sunday’s helicopter crash in northern Iran. Now, it’s a bonafide crisis.
The matter of who will succeed Khamenei, the country’s paramount leader since 1989, has engaged people inside and outside Iran for some years, but has grown progressively more urgent. Raisi became president in 2021 in an election that was all-but fixed using the regime’s internal mechanisms, including ruthless pre-poll vetting by the Guardian Council in line with the Khamenei’s well-known preferences. As a trusted regime hand, Raisi previously headed the nation’s judiciary.
And once elected, he had become a plausible “heir” to Khamenei, assuming he had the backing of the powerful Revolutionary Guards. His effusive loyalty to the current leader and close ties with his son, Mujtaba Khamenei, had led observers to see Raisi at the very least as an immediate or interim successor, possibly paving the way for the younger Khamenei’s more permanent succession as Vali-e faqih, or top Shia political and religious authority in Iran.
Where’s the crisis?
The question of succession has become critical for several reasons.
1. Khamenei’s age and health, with constant rumors about him being ill;
2. Rivalries between internal political clans, bound to complicate the process;
3. The Revolutionary Guards and their power-broking role;
4. Foreign powers are closely monitoring the situation in line with interests linked to Iran’s strategic positioning and resources.
The succession crisis has potential consequences that include immediate popular unrest and political discord, and in the longer term, decisions on economic problems and foreign relations depending on how it is resolved. The election of the next president is perhaps the regime’s first step in tackling the crisis.
Accidents happen!
With the Revolutionary Guards’ decisive role, and should they decide to back Mujtaba as leader, it would be in exchange for promises of more and more favors, influence and power for themselves. In a regime like Iran’s — which is looking unnervingly like that of Russia’s Vladimir Putin — nobody should believe they are safe. Accidents happen! One only need recall Ahmad Khomeini, son of the regime’s revered founder, who was sidelined from power after his father’s death before dying of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 49. There is no reason why Mujtaba couldn’t wind up with a similar life.
An opening for reformists?
Raisi’s death may prove an opening for regime moderates or reformists, who might even be allowed to run for the presidency in the upcoming election. This is of interest to the West as a “moderate” president might return to the negotiating table for yet another nuclear deal, which would in turn usher in another period of détente, for want of a better word. And it would be of particular interest to the Biden administration who could peddle it as a boon and a win ahead of presidential elections in November.
This isolated regime could do with another nuclear pact, and it seems, so could the West.
The Biden administration has essentially clarified its position, and the choices for Iran: White House officials recently stated that while it will do all it can to block the Iranian regime from becoming a nuclear power, it does prefer to talk. Iran has this option then, amid a host of conditions that pressure it to say, alright. The return of a reformist to the presidency, as if by electoral miracle, would constitute a positive signal, and the regime may indeed have given an early signal by appointing a veteran negotiator, Ali Baqeri, as acting foreign minister.
He may be the only current senior diplomat, after the last foreign minister’s death alongside Raisi, who enjoys the Leader’s confidence on the nuclear question. Even at the height of the Mahsa uprising in 2022, Baqeri remained in contact with Western diplomats, and has been involved in discreet talks held in Oman in recent weeks, between his regime and the United States.
Isolation and nuclear tension
If the regime were to arrange the spectacle of a competitive and well-attended election in coming weeks, it could, with the help of eager foreign media, present a picture of normalization two years after a nationwide revolt and its brutal repression, and the regional quagmire that has brought Iran few if any benefits.
Tehran could do with another nuclear pact, and it seems, so could the West.
Tehran need only recall the embarrassing futility of its barrage of fire against Israel. It should also consider the recent action of its supposed ally, Syria, at a recent meeting of Arab states in Bahrain. In spite of the aid received from Tehran over the years, Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad decided to vote for the Arabs in the matter of a longstanding territorial dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. So much for gratitude in politics!
The increasingly isolated regime in Tehran could do with another nuclear pact, and it seems, so could the West. The Democrats aside, the condolences sent by the Europeans after Raisi’s death appear to show a measure of goodwill and willingness to resume talks in the absence of realistic prospects for essential change in Iran.
With Raisi’s funeral over, more than ever, all eyes now turn to Khamenei — and whoever will succeed him.
