A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi crashed in Iran\u2019s East Azerbaijin province Sunday into a fog-shrouded forest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As multiple emergency crews instigated search-and-rescue operations, speculation mounted as to what would happen in the event of Raisi\u2019s death, and what it would mean for Iran\u2019s internal affairs. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019s domestic politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The helicopter crash, Taleblu noted, comes after years of growing protests in the streets against the regime, as well as plummeting participation in elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Raisi was a symbol of the hard right shift of what\u2019s left of the governing elite of the Islamic Republic of Iran,\u2019 Taleblu said. \u2018It represents kind of this second generation where, loyalty and zeal rather than capability and competence were key factors in his political ascension.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taleblu noted that Raisi has had blood on his hands for decades, having been involved in the mass execution of prisoners in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n
Raisi, now 63, previously ran Iran\u2019s judiciary. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 2017 against Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran\u2019s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Raisi became president of Iran in an election that saw all of his potentially prominent opponents barred from running under Iran\u2019s vetting system. He swept nearly 62% of the 28.9 million votes, the lowest turnout by percentage in the Islamic Republic\u2019s history. Millions stayed home and others voided ballots.<\/p>\n
While a powerful position on paper, Raisi has \u2018no domestic organic social support base,\u2019 Taleblu said. \u2018He\u2019s really a vehicle for the ultra hard-right consolidation in Iranian Islamic politics.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Raisi has long been seen as a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to Iran\u2019s supreme leader and a potential successor for his position within the country\u2019s Shiite theocracy. But with Raisi potentially out of the way, Taleblu said, \u2018the short list would have gotten even shorter.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Another person on that shortlist, that would benefit significantly from this is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s son, Mojtaba, who right now basically wields power without accountability. And many, allege that he is interested in becoming the next supreme leader, or that he may be jockeying to become the next Supreme leader as well,\u2019 Taleblu said.<\/p>\n
Iran ultimately is run by its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But as president, Raisi supported the country\u2019s enrichment of uranium up to near-weapons-grade levels, as well as it hampering international inspectors as part of its confrontation with the West.<\/p>\n
Raisi also supported attacking Israel in a massive assault in April that saw over 300 drones and missiles fired at the country in response to a suspected Israeli attack that killed Iranian generals at the country\u2019s embassy compound in Damascus, Syria \u2014 itself a widening of a yearslong shadow war between the two countries.<\/p>\n
He also supported the country\u2019s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini and the nationwide protests that followed.<\/p>\n
The monthslong security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained. In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the \u2018physical violence\u2019 that led to Amini\u2019s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.<\/p>\n\n
A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi crashed in Iran\u2019s East Azerbaijin province Sunday into a fog-shrouded forest.\u00a0 As multiple emergency crews instigated search-and-rescue operations, speculation mounted as to what would happen in the event of Raisi\u2019s death, and what it would mean for Iran\u2019s internal affairs. \u00a0\u00a0 Fox News Digital spoke with Behnam Ben <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}