Although it quickly became clear that it was an accident, even in this one could discern aspects concerning the particular geopolitical situation in which Iran finds itself.
The president and foreign minister are visiting Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam on the Aras River, the third the two countries have jointly built. Although Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel and the fact that the tones of an Azeri nationalism that worries the Iranian side, which has a strong Azeri minority, have cooled somewhat, it is clear that Tehran wants to maintain relatively good relations .
On the way back they move in a convoy of three helicopters. If the information that it was a Bell 212 is true then we are talking about a helicopter that arrived in Iran probably before the 1979 revolution and like all Western-made aircraft that Iran has is dependent on the country’s ability to procure spare parts despite sanctions.
The delegation’s return was probably relatively rushed considering the volume of issues that are open. But a flight in bad weather and over a mountain mass always has risks, especially when the helicopter is old.
Obviously, the accident itself did not mean the collapse of the state apparatus, as Iran has a fairly complex and deeply institutionalized political system that ensures the functioning of the state apparatus. This was also shown by the activation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
The cost to conservatives
But at the same time Raishi’s loss is significant for the “conservative” camp in Iran, i.e. the wing that is more conservative on cultural, moral and religious issues, relatively harder on relations with the West and more oriented towards social justice.
And the reason is that Raishi had managed to emerge as a leadership figure who could not only serve a second term, as has happened with all presidents so far, but could also succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the Supreme Leader . This was also helped by the way the Board of Trustees took care in the 2021 elections to clear the pre-election landscape during the initial selection of candidates.
Now, a successor who can win the election must be found quickly. And although the Western media has been quick to highlight the case of Moztaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son, it is far from certain that a candidacy that exuded nepotism could emerge in a country that in 1979 revolted against a hereditary monarchy.
The problem of political apathy
However, the issue is not only to have a nomination, but also to address the underlying problem which is a peculiar climate of political apathy. In the recent parliamentary elections, in which the ballots of the various “conservative” coalitions triumphed, the turnout was just over 41%, the lowest since the revolution of 1979. After all, Raisi himself had been elected with a percentage of 72.35 %, but the participation rate was again the lowest in a presidential election with only 49%.
This means that a basic legitimizing mechanism which was precisely the presidential and parliamentary elections is going through a crisis. And this also has to do with the constant social discontent which primarily has to do with the social condition which is aggravated by the sanctions and secondarily determined by the issues of authoritarian practices in terms of “morals”.
A presidential election with low turnout again will exacerbate the problem, while the only way to strengthen participation, i.e. not to have a mass exclusion of candidates from the other factions, especially the “reformers” is in conflict with the tendency of the bloc of conservatives to advance the pre-screening of the landscape through the filtering of candidates at the level of the Board of Trustees.
No change in foreign policy is foreseen
Of course, all this does not mean that there is any center in Iran that would like a radically different policy, especially regarding the country’s international stance.
Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally pull the US out of the nuclear deal and return to a sanctions regime, combined with the wider geopolitical polarization that has marked the restart of negotiations with Tehran, has meant that its key strategic imperative reformist wing, namely the lifting of sanctions as a lever for greater economic prosperity through increased energy sales to the West, no longer had ground, which also made it vulnerable to popular discontent.
This means that the geopolitical orientation that was preeminently associated with the “conservatives”, i.e. a more confrontational relationship with the West, greater investment in the “Axis of Resistance” and a shift towards the processes of a potential “Eurasian integration”, is to some extent and the only feasible foreign policy in the circumstances that took shape especially after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Accordingly, at the same time, it is not likely to change the current “realism” that wishes to avoid a more escalating confrontation with the USA (something that was already seen by the “cool” response to Soleimani’s assassination in 2000) but also the denial involvement in a war with Israel, which was also seen in the carefully choreographed Iranian response to Israel’s choice to bomb an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria with the aim of killing senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards. And this despite the fact that there were various voices that would like a more active involvement of Iran. The effort to normalize relations with Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia, is also not going to change logically, which is also something that Iran’s allies such as China, which in this particular case also played a mediating role, are asking for.
The deepest concern
However, all this does not negate an element of concern. Social discontent remains active and political apathy also points to a retreat in the ability of the conservative bloc to claim to represent a majority dynamic, even in the absence of a correspondingly strong opposing pole. The element of patriotism as well as an anti-Western attitude remains active and is often expressed on the street in various mass events, but it is clear that without a perspective of greater and better distributed prosperity foreign policy alone will not address the issue of legitimacy. At the same time the conservative turn to “morals” issues will lose the ability to become a cohesive element and will increasingly cause tensions that will allow a more general discontent to come to the fore.
All this forms a complex and contradictory landscape, which may not have the element of “uncertainty” reflexively highlighted by some Western media, but it certainly shows that the Islamic Republic is at a crossroads that goes beyond the question of just finding leadership figures.
