42
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, hardline ally of Supreme Leader, killed in helicopter crash
Link information
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- Title
- Hopes fade as wreckage found of helicopter carrying Iranian President Raisi
- Authors
- Parisa Hafezi, Yomna Mohamed
- Published
- May 20 2024
- Word count
- 659 words
It'll be interesting seeing how this affects the "race" for the next supreme leader. Not that much will probably change; I doubt anyone who's even remotely Reformist has a chance at that. Same goes for the presidency.
I recently saw someone on reddit mention that the real issue here might be the loss of the foreign minister. That he was actually quite capable in bringing Iran closer to Russia and China and exerting Iranian influence over its various proxies in the region.
I dunno about that, it's worth noting that the supreme leader is quite old, too. Pair that with the minister of FA also being dead, there is now a stage set for backroom politics inside quite a tyrannical dictatorship over the long term fate of the country.
In terms of reformism, there's a good chance we won't see that directly. Instability though, I wouldn't rule it out. Especially as the region isn't exactly stable to begin with.
I'd expect either Russia/China to back a candidate favorable to them and ensure they wind up in the right place or for things to get very very complex, and possibly violent.
I very much doubt this is a window for anything the west would see as reform.
Previous discussions can also be found here.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.ph/lvPfv
Is everyone too cautious to write how they feel about his death?
I've never wished for a man to die, but there have been some obituaries I've read with pleasure.
-not my quote
“President of Iran” is a largely ceremonial position, so it’s hard to conclude what it actually means unless you’re well read on the internal politics of the country. Unfortunately, that’s not very well reported on unless you work in the intelligence community because it’s not exactly a thriving hub for journalism.
What am I supposed to feel, or write? Iran is a hostile, regressive nation. Autocratic theists drunk on power, determined to use their position to knuckle their entire country under. Hoping against hope they will find enough power to be able to forcibly slaughter any and all nonbelievers, and spread the word of their religion far and wide so it's the only religion as is just and right in their eyes.
Which they've done for decades now (except for the part where they have no power beyond their own borders). Since around the 80s, I can't be bothered to look up the exact date or anything but somewhere around there I think.
I am getting sick of hearing about Iran though. It seems like, for the last several months, any link from anywhere about Iran gets posted at least twice on Reddit. Which means each individual story shows up multiple times since the same individual link gets reposted across multiple subs. Then, of course, different news outlets will reencapsulate the same story on their site, so that gets posted too and you're up to many more than "just multiple" of the same general story.
And what are those stories? Iran being Iran. Autocratic theists brutalizing, beating, and executing people. It's always the same story. Iran arrested someone, tortured them for a while, then execution. It's not shocking when it happens, every, day.
What does posting the stories do? No one's doing anything. Yet social media floods all these links about "Iran sucks" and "Iran is evil' and all that. Yeah, we know. They're Iran. Have they changed recently? No? Because that would be a story.
But the hundredth report of "Iran secret police arrest someone" or "detained (insert person) executed by Iran" or "imprisoned (person in Iran) tortured" does nothing except confirm Iran is still Iran. They're an outcast country because their theist autocratic leaders are all dickhead douchebags.
You look in the comments for those posted links, and it's just a big circlejerk. Everyone validation seeking as they pile on with negatives and insults and so on. They say "Iran sucks" and get hundreds of upvotes. Does that make the situation any better? No, it's just social media being social media.
If I could at least drink my coffee and scroll through news that might actually be semi relevant, that might be news, or at least new news, that'd be a nice change. But the endless parade of "Iran is still Iran" stories are just annoying because it's like the reporter glanced outside and then turned to the camera, or the word processor, and told me "and in other news, the sky is still up."
That their leader died ... okay? I could cheer, but I'm told that's in bad taste. I could talk about how it'd be nice if the Iranian Resistance (should such a thing exist, which I sadly doubt does) should rise up and see if there's any confusion or opportunity they could seize on at this moment. But if they were gonna do that, they woulda before now. Certainly when Iranian Secret Police were clubbing and dragging students out of street protests in recent months.
But no, they all let that happen and haven't risen up, so I'd expect the sum total of what's being said within any form of Iranian Resistance about the leader's death is nothing more than "good, I'd go spit on his grave but They'd be watching and just arrest us so we'll have to settle for staying hunkered down while we cheer in private."
When I started seeing so many stories about the protests, I got a little interested. Maybe they're gonna Do Something. Change Something. But no, they just milled about for a bit, screaming and social media posting, while they were picked off by Iranian cops and Iranian secret police and all that. What fire that supposedly might have existed faded, and they're all back to basically being knuckled under.
So I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do? Or think? Because Iran is definitely not waiting with baited breath to hear my thoughts. Neither is anyone's State Department.
When someone wades into Iran and makes them knock it off, that'll be interesting. When the people of Iran wake up and remember there are more of them than there are of the autocratic leadership, that'll be interesting. But until something that fits vaguely into that definition happens, Iran is just this subject that's better left filtered.
Until then, someone who pretty much proved he was a theist autocratic dickhead died in a helicopter crash. The most thought I'm putting into it is this amusing fantasy that the pilot of said helicopter had just learned, shortly before being ordered to fly the leader of the autocratic theist dickheads, that a cousin or his high school flame or someone he cared about had been arrested, tortured, and executed by the security forces.
In this fantasy, I like to think of a Hollywood moment where that pilot decides to crash the helicopter purposefully to take out the head theist autocratic dickhead. He thought he didn't want to go down shooting, or try to join an ineffectual Resistance, but he did realize he could just take the whole aircraft down. Sure he dies, but he gets to take Top Dick with him.
So I guess I think that. Even though that pilot was probably a True Believer, and if he could've cut his own throat and used his fading life force to save Dear Leader he probably would've is the more likely reason he was sitting in that pilot's seat in the first place.
Probably, though if you're not a public agency and just a private citizen, I think it's safe to take a cue from how young Iranian women have felt about the country's oppressive policies when crafting your answer.
The context I was thinking of was moderated social media. A number of moderators on various platforms frown upon emotional expressions of the demise of bad people.
Ah - gotcha. It always surprised me that they'd do that. Don't be an asshole about it, but we should be free to speak ill of the dead of we're not being bigoted or nasty about it.
I don't really have individual feelings about him. He was part of an oppressive government. Sounds like he sucked. It could have not been accidental. Even if it was it could be claimed it wasn't. Doesn't feel great.
I have nothing useful to add, ya know
Why do you feel like it cold not have been accidental?
Helicopters crash all of the time.
"Could have not been" rather than "could not have been"
Yeah I realized I wrote it in a more complicated manner, I meant it is possible it wasn't an accident.
Oh strange, I didn't even see your reply before I commented! Must have already had the tab open from just before you said something. Maybe I should make it a habit to refresh before commenting just in case.
Wasn't trying to undermine or hijack 🙂
oh no worries at all! I was realizing I had written it oddly. my brain does that.
They do, but it's factual to say it "could" have not been accidental. I'm not even claiming it's likely. I don't know He was the presumed successor to the Supreme Leader which creates a lot of people who might be interested in killing him, including the Supreme Leader in certain circumstances.
Even more so, it'll be very easy to convince a lot of people that it wasn't an accident if it's politically advantageous to do so. It doesn't even have to be true.
But it's a fact that it could be true