Saudi King Salman’s health, Iran President Raisi’s death spur succession bets
Iran’s president, some clarity is emerging about Tehran’s next steps.
The bad news for western capitals and those Iranian activists pushing for change is that there’s little hope of a relaxation of political oppression, or of the antagonism directed at the US and its allies, according to western officials. They see the authoritarian regime as robust enough to carry on its current trajectory after Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash.
Less clear is how Raisi’s passing changes the calculus for whoever will eventually succeed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is in his mid-80s.
Those considerations, along with renewed questions over the health of Saudi Arabia’s elderly king, mean that the focus has turned to transition in each of the Middle East powers. That adds another layer of uncertainty, and potential instability, to months of regional turmoil triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.
“All of these developments are a great reminder that nobody controls the narrative, and the discussions about the state of Middle East risk and geopolitical risk more broadly are extremely fluid,” Tina Fordham, founder of Fordham Global Foresight, told Bloomberg Television on Monday.
Last year, US National Security Jake Sullivan famously described the Middle East as “quieter today” than at any time in the past two decades — the week before Hamas attacked Israel and set off the war in Gaza.
As well as that conflict, and heightened tensions
