The death in a helicopter accident of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisí adds even greater uncertainty to the future of a country like Iran, key to the balance of the Middle East, a region in an explosive situation after the Hamas massacre on October 7 and the subsequent invasion of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces more than six months ago.
Iran has been Israel’s true adversary throughout this period. First through what has been known as the “shadow war,” through attacks by the militias it supports in the area (Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas itself in the Palestinian territories. and other forces in Syria and Iraq). And since last April 13, directly, in an attack with missiles and drones on Israeli territory previously announced to minimize its effects.
The Iranian authorities have set out to erase any hint of suspicion about the intention of Raisí’s death. They are aware of the fragility of the regime in the transition period that is opening. But if we had to look for a beneficiary of his death, it would be Israel. The helicopter in which Raisí crashed was returning from the inauguration of a dam on the border with Azerbaijan, where he shared a ceremony with its president, Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel, and the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, is very active on its territory. The Azeri minority, which has little connection with the ayatollah regime, is also important in northern Iran, equivalent to almost 35% of the country’s population. And their presence in the recent protests against the regime has been notable.
Is it plausible that Israel had something to do with Raisi’s death? It shouldn’t be. Iran’s missile attack on Israel was a show of restraint and a sign that Iran is not interested in escalating the conflict in the region. However, Israel is not a single voice today. And direct confrontation with Iran would seem to be the continuation of the policy followed by the most radical sectors within Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, increasingly divided, opposed to any negotiation and installed in the logic of “the worse, the better.” The January 20 attack on Damascus in which several generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard died was, in fact, a miscalculation encouraged by these sectors, if not an open provocation.
Some observers do not rule out the hypothesis of an attack from within either. Iran is a country with serious legitimacy problems. In which the regime has had a hard time mobilizing the population to go to the polls in recent years. Even to elect Raisí himself, who won in 2021 with the lowest participation in the history of the Islamic Revolution. This has turned the Iranian regime into a paranoid conglomerate, obsessed with eliminating any trace of internal dissent. In January of this year, the Islamic State, of Sunni affiliation, reappeared in the city of Kerman with an attack that left 84 dead. The objective was a ceremony that celebrated the anniversary of the death in an attack of General Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iranian military expansion in the Middle East in recent years and assassinated by the United States in Baghdad in 2020.
The Baloch minority is also very active in the eastern reaches of the country. But Tehran does not perceive any of these groups as a real danger. The hypothesis of an attack from within the regime would have more to do with the ins and outs of an opaque regime. Of the power struggles in a very radicalized leadership permeated by the Guardians of the Revolution, now in the positioning phase for the succession. It should be noted that Raisí had to revalidate his mandate in upcoming elections.
Raisí’s death is, in any case, inopportune for a country that for geopolitical reasons has become a regional power with important allies. There are two great assets of Iran. Oil and its military technology, capable of manufacturing cutting-edge drones that it supplies to Russia and that have demonstrated their effectiveness on the Ukrainian front. Five years ago, Iran was an isolated country. But the war in Ukraine has changed everything.
Its proximity to Russia first, and to China later, has brought it out of isolation and made it an indispensable country for the recomposition of the global political landscape. For those who consider that there is a new Axis of Evil against Western power (according to the unfortunate expression of George W. Bush), it would now include Russia, China and Iran itself (with the not inconsiderable military aid of South Korea). North). Iran’s strengthening in the external panorama has been evident in recent days, by signing a strategic agreement with India through which Nerendra Modi’s country accesses the port of Chandahar, vital for its interests in Central Asia. With the death of Raisí, then, Iran enters a very dangerous transition phase until it rebuilds the hierarchy of power.
Raisí’s death is untimely and that is why Nassim Taleb, the essayist who theorized the existence of the Black Swans, those unpredictable events that in their accidentality convulsively reorder everything around them, explained this morning on the X network that the death of the leader Raisí reminds him of the death in an attack of Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1914, at the hands of the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. A death that ended abruptly in World War I. Raisí’s death would be, in this alarmist vision, a Black Swan that would lead to a large-scale war with multiple actors.
But that would be anticipating events. And bet on a scenario that is as apocalyptic as it is implausible. Right now, on this morning of May 20, the price of oil, one of the gauges of instability in the area, has barely noticed Raisí’s death. For everyone’s peace of mind.
