“Pray for our president Ebrahim Raisi.” This call to all Iranians came through official TV channels while, last night, the search for the missing helicopter at the border with Azerbaijan was still ongoing. Not even a few minutes after the appeal—to “remain united and devoted”—the irony of the dissidents was already circulating furiously and unstoppable: “Yes, yes, we pray, but maybe we don’t wish for the same ending…”
The rift is clear, broken, incurable. Because Raisi, 63 years old, wearing the black turban that according to Shia Islam tradition signifies descent from Muhammad, embodies in his biography the controversial and criminal history of the Islamic Republic of Iran: from the Revolution in 1979 led to the fall of the Shah and later opreesed by the Islamic moevement, to the brutal contraction of hope and rights that in 45 years cemented an illiberal and misogynist theocracy, unjust and ineffective, incapable of keeping even one of its original promises of social justice.
Born in 1960 in Mashhad, the country’s second city and a sanctuary city, Raisi built his career on unconditional loyalty to Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader since 1989. It is worth pausing here to do some calculations. Ayatollah Khomeini died on the eve of the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Since then, Khamenei has been the framed face of the Regime, the man who makes the final decision.
At 15 years old, Ebrahim Raisi, fatherless, attended a religious school in Qom; in the late seventies, he participated in the protests that toppled the monarchy; by 25, he was already deputy prosecutor in Tehran. He is not brilliant, but loyal, a radical conservative, ready for anything. Even to preside, with three other judges, over the “Death Commission,” as it will be called by human rights organizations, which in the 80s sent thirty thousand Iranians, men and women, to the gallows.
A killer of thousands of innocent people who were executed with just a few questions. Some of these questions were: Is the prisoner willing to condemn the Mojahedin organization and its leader? Is the prisoner loyal to the ideals of the Mojahedin organization? And for the leftist and communists, the questions were: Does the prisoner believe in God? Does the prisoner believe in heaven and hell? Does the prisoner read the Quran? The majority of those executed were under 25 years old. Before the execution, virgin women were forcibly married so that, according to the religious beliefs of the authorities, they would not go to heaven after execution!
The Death Commission, asked entrapment questions in the same manner as the inquisitors of the Middle Ages. These questions, especially for university students unfamiliar with detailed religious jurisprudence, were shocking to Iranians. Such questions had never been posed in Iran or perhaps anywhere else in the Middle East before. This was an inquisition in the truest sense of the word—an inquisition aimed at uncovering individuals’ religious faith rather than their political and organizational affiliations.
When he lost the presidential election in 2017, Khamenei appointed him head of the judiciary and made him deputy of the Assembly of Experts, the board of 88 “enlightened” individuals tasked with appointing the next Supreme Leader, the absolute head of a hybrid state, designed by Khomeini, maintaining two lines of command: the religious one and the one that should be the expression of popular vote (a crucial note: abstention in the last elections, on March 1, broke all records, in the capital, about 10% of those eligible voted in the second round of parliamentary elections). Raisi remains in the increasingly claustrophobic inner circle of those who matter: he became president in 2021, amid protests over the lack of rivals. Since then, he has governed poorly: Iran is shaken by the protests of young people, the steep decline in the value of the currency, inflation, and the poverty that is crushing the middle class.
“We hope he returns, that God brings the honorable president and his companions back into the arms of the nation,” Khamenei said, looking from Tehran towards the storm of fog and uncertainty at the northwest border, hastening to assure that — in the meantime — “there will be no interruptions in work.” But the truth, thinly veiled behind the anxiety of a Sunday that could stormily change history, is that the regime — after not even half a century — has few pieces, few cards to play for those key roles intended to keep up the shaky framework of the system by force. In a very young country, with an average age just over 30, power is in the hands of a group of old men, isolated, besieged by modernity. Raisi’s name was on the very short list of candidates for the Supreme Leader’s seat, a strategic transition given Khamenei’s now 85 years. Next to his was Mojitaba, the Ayatollah’s second son. But how can the Islamic Republic, proudly revolutionary, fold and claim a dynastic succession, from father to son, like the hated Shahs of Persia?
First, reformist analysts within the regime and then Western analysts introduced him as a likely successor to Khamenei. This was a completely wrong analysis based on a lack of familiarity with Iranian politics and the officials of the Islamic Republic. An analytical delusion that failed to recognize that Raisi, who even speaks Persian like an elementary school student, could not meet the regime’s standards to succeed Khamenei. Yet, the illusion persisted.
For many observers, this deadlock seemingly paves a path for the IRGC, purportedly an elite force comprising 120,000 salaried members, augmented by millions of volunteers spread across the nation. Described as a state within a state, the IRGC’s influence extends beyond mere military prowess, both domestically and internationally, through a strategic axis reaching as far as Gaza. Moreover, it appears to have woven itself into the fabric of emerging economic sectors, ostensibly challenging the clergy’s venerable standing—a claim which still clings to its foundational legitimacy. Yet, one might wonder if this portrayal of sweeping authority and control isn’t somewhat overstated.
The question is how could the young generations, who have taken to the streets putting their bodies in the way of the regime, accept a shift from the turbans of the theocracy to the uniforms of the Guardians, those forces that managed the repression in the streets after the death of Mahsa/Jina Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman killed in September 2022 for revealing a lock of hair. The same ones who detained Nika Shakarami, 16 years old, at her first protest, loading her onto one of the trucks used to break up and disperse the demonstrations. They thought she was “a leader of the riots,” a teenager who had told her aunt, “Tonight, I’m staying at a friend’s, don’t wait up for me”… They loaded her, beat her with batons and tasers, raped her, and finally dumped her dead body on the sidewalk.
What you think?