President of Iran. Helicopter crash

[wiffleball 4,790]

Operation Eagle Claw still haunting Iran. 

[SUXBNME 1,503]

3 hours ago, IGotWorms said:

I dunno, it could’ve been for sure, but this “president” guy didn’t really run the show anyway. It’s all the ayatollah.

But I suppose it could’ve been part of some bigger scheme.

Very much the troof on both parts.  
Figurehead, easily replaceable.

[EternalShinyAndChrome 4,106]

1 minute ago, SUXBNME said:

Very much the troof on both parts.  
Figurehead, easily replaceable.

Maybe the Ayatollah had him offed to put a new puppet on the throne.

[SUXBNME 1,503]

1 minute ago, EternalShinyAndChrome said:

Maybe the Ayatollah had him offed to put a new puppet on the throne.

Would not rule that out one bit.   He was an alleged "hardliner" tho. 

Then again, wtf do we really know about what goes on behind the scenes there. 

Mossad knows

[Gepetto 1,368]

He (President Ebrahim Raisi who died in the helicopter crash) was a favorite to become the next Supreme Leader and held very much the same beliefs/goals as the current ayatollah.

[Gepetto 1,368]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/world/middleeast/iran-raisi-death-supreme-leader.html

By Erika Solomon

May 20, 2024Updated 2:30 p.m. ET

He is known as a man in the shadows of Iranian politics. Yet Mojtaba Khamenei has a powerful influence over a country that rarely sees or hears him.

For years, the son of Iran’s supreme leader has been speculated to be a potential candidate to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

That speculation has grown with the death of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who many analysts said was being groomed to replace the supreme leader, who is 85. Mr. Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash on Sunday will not only trigger new presidential elections. It could also shift the dynamics around the selection of Ayatollah Khamenei’s replacement.

“When people started talking about Mojtaba as a potential successor in 2009, I considered it a cheap rumor,” said Arash Azizi, a lecturer at Clemson University who focuses on Iran. “But it’s not that anymore. It’s very clear now that he is a remarkable figure. And he’s remarkable because he’s been almost entirely invisible in the public eye.”

Yet a growing number within Iran’s political establishment have begun to publicly endorse him, added Mr. Azizi.

Mr. Khamenei, 55, is the second son of the ayatollah’s six children. A conservative hard-liner, he grew up in the clerical and political elite of the Islamic Republic, established in 1979, and later fostered ties within the powerful Revolutionary Guards. Today, he is believed to play a critical role in running his father’s office.

But many Iran experts dismiss the idea that the ayatollah’s own son could replace him as a danger to the system.

Since the 1979 revolution deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a small group of Shiite clerics that run Iran have held far more power than elected officials. But a foundational principle of the Islamic Republic was that it ended hereditary rule.

“If the supreme leader turns into a hereditary system, what does that mean? It means the system is dead,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iran analyst and editor of Amwaj, an independent online media outlet that focuses on Iran, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula.

Mojtaba Khamenei teaches at Iran’s largest seminary, in Qom, but other religious leaders have disputed his credentials. He has not achieved a high rank within the Shiite clerical hierarchy, something long seen as necessary for taking on the role of supreme leader.

Where he seems adept, however, is in political maneuvering.

A veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, Mr. Khamenei became a friend of his fellow soldier Hossein Taeb, who later became leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ paramilitary unit, the Basij, and later led its intelligence forces for many years. Mr. Khamenei is believed to have other high-level links to Iran’s security apparatus as well, said Mr. Azizi.

Mr. Khamenei was accused by Iranian reformists of playing a significant role in the 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-line populist, who unexpectedly beat the leading candidates at the time.

In 2009, after Mr. Ahmadinejad’s re-election against the reformist leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, antigovernment protests swept the country. Responding to Mr. Khamenei’s suspected role in the election, as well as rumors of his succession, some opposition activists chanted, “Mojtaba, may you die and not become supreme leader.”

Then, in 2022, in another wave of antgovernment protests, Mr. Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011, called on Ayatollah Khamenei to dispel the rumors about his son succeeding him. The ayatollah did not respond then.

But earlier this year, he did, as the issue of succession becomes far more pressing.

The cleric Mahmoud Mohammadi Araghi, a member of the Assembly of Experts that selects the supreme leader, told the state-affiliated news agency ILNA that Ayatollah Khamenei was vehemently opposed to his son being considered.

The Assembly of Experts must unanimously select the supreme leader. Until then, they could choose a three- or five-member leadership council to run the country.

Ultimately, the fate of any potential successor lies within an opaque system that critics say has only become less transparent in recent years.

“The reality is that nobody knows,” said Mr. Shabani. “And that is crazy. There is zero transparency on a process that affects millions of Iranians.”

 

[Voltaire 5,316]

Meet the new boss.

Same as the old boss.

[BunnysBastatrds 2,442]

 Times are a changing now and have been for a decade plus. The young want to be be more like the western world and not have mullah keep them in th seventh century anymore. It was a long time coming, and now they are getting close to the dream their parents have preyed and died for. In my opinion, this is the perfect time for it. I hope they will.

[wiffleball 4,790]

Airwolf soars again! 

[Engorgeous George 2,331]

22 hours ago, kilroy69 said:

All signs point to weather is a great way to camouflage  an assassination  

Being, as I am, unfamiliar with Jewish Space Lasers, don't they have an effect on the weather, or was that from Austin Powers?