It’s official: Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian are dead. The helicopter they were flying in over Iran’s East Azerbaijan province crashed in freezing, rugged terrain during atrocious weather conditions, including rain and dense fog, on Sunday afternoon local time.

The search for Raisi and his sorry fellow helicopter riders took some 16 hours, with search-and-rescue teams struggling almost endlessly to locate the helicopter’s wreckage. Turkey eventually provided a reconnaissance drone to help find the missing helicopter, and the chopper was finally identified blasted to smithereens in a rocky, jagged area where the odds of survival after a crash, even a low impact one – especially for many hours – were exceedingly low.

Raisi had been on the border with Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River. He was flying back from the ceremony in a three-helicopter convoy; the two other helicopter reached their destinations, while the one he and the foreign minister were in went missing, sparking a massive, frenzied – and ultimately dragged-out – search.

The 63-year-old Raisi – who formerly led the country’s judiciary and earned the nickname “Butcher of Tehran” by sentencing thousands of Iranians to death in the 1980’s – was viewed as a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many analysts had suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after Khamenei’s death or resignation.

Raisi won Iran’s rigged presidential election in 2021, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi was sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under Raisi, Iran enriched uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampered international inspections. Under his watch, Iran armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He also directed the continued arming proxy terrorist groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, among many other.

Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

The sudden death of Raisi throws Iran into a state of uncertainty, as the country grapples with regional conflicts, economic woes, and a looming succession crisis.

Iran is already engaged in a regional war involving direct military action and proxy conflicts. Its adversaries, including the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, are considering strengthening their security ties to counter Iran’s influence. The Iranian economy is also facing significant challenges, with the potential for further sanctions from the United States.

According to the Iranian constitution, a new presidential election must be held within 50 days, with Vice President Muhammad Mokhber assuming the presidency in the interim. However, Mokhber is seen as an apparatchik rather than a power player, and the real succession battle lies in the future.

The Guardian Council, a group of clerics and lawyers, will decide who is eligible to run in the next presidential election. In the past, they have disqualified hundreds of potential candidates, leaving only a handful of approved contenders.

The more significant succession, however, is the one that will follow Khamenei’s eventual passing. The Supreme Leader turned 85 last month – the day that Israel fired missiles near his prized nuclear facilities in Isfahan For years, Iranians have seen Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son, and Raisi as the two leading candidates to take over. With Raisi’s death, Mojtaba’s path to power may be clearer, but other dark-horse candidates could still emerge.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)