View: Iran’s President Raisi, who died in chopper crash, was a failure
Iranian presidents since the early 1980s have in essence been expressions of what the supreme leader thought he needed at the time. Ebrahim Raisi was not only a protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but also closer in his purist religious and political views. So it matters that at home — where the future of the regime will ultimately be determined — the man chosen to restore faith in and obedience to the Islamic Revolution failed.
Raisi came to power in 2021, claiming that Iran didn’t need a by-then-defunct nuclear deal with the West and could prosper by facing its “resistance economy” squarely to the east. He also quickly imposed a crackdown on female dress codes, in a demonstrative turn to a past where his revolutionary credentials — as “the Butcher of Tehran,” responsible for mass executions of regime opponents in 1988 —were impeccable.
By the time of his death in a helicopter crash on Sunday, however, both policies had proved disastrous. There were fireworks in the streets of Tehran, as some celebrated an unloved president’s demise.
Even Raisi’s election success in 2021 was, in reality, a sign of failure. It was the first presidential vote to produce no benefit whatsoever as a tool of legitimation for Khamenei, at a time when the 40-year-old revolution’s appeal has faded. Raisi had lost to a less hardline regime member — former President Hassan Rouhani — in 2017. He was able to succeed four years later only after the Khamenei-dominated Guardian Council
