The Implications of the News and the Deaths of a High-Centric-To-Minimal Chief Adviser
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and several other government officials were killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, leaving the country in leadership limbo at a time of especially high regional tensions.
Iran’s supreme leader announced a five day mourning and a new interim president after the deaths were confirmed by state media.
According to Robin Wright, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Wilson Center, the death of Raisi may not have an effect on the day-to-day running of the country, but rather its longer-term future.
She told Morning Edition that the scramble behind the scenes would be very interesting, but that there will be a process that’s in place.
Mokhber said that there would not be any problems in the administration of the country under the shadow of the leadership.
The role that he is currently playing in the elected branch of government will be used to perpetuate corruption, implement a resistance economy, and punish regime enemies, says United Against Nuclear Iran.
The president’s first deputy is able to oversee the affairs of the Council of Ministers with the approval of the president.
The first vice president will assume power and functions in the case of their death, dismissal or absence, as long as the supreme leader approves.
The speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the head of the judicial power and the first deputy of the President are required to organize for a new President to be elected within fifty days.
Tehran and Moscow: What to know about Mokhber, the man who built Setad ain’t Khamenei
Mokhber traveled to Tehran to shore up political support and visited the site of a building collapse that resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. He also had a hand in international diplomacy, receiving visiting leaders from places like Syria and China.
He was part of a team of Iranian security officials who visited Moscow in October 2022, months into Russia’s war with Ukraine, to discuss weapons deliveries. Reuters reported that the group agreed to provide more surface-to-surface missiles and drones to Russia’s military.
Mokhber blamed NATO for the killing of Ukrainians during that visit, according to the Washington Post.
“We have been under these sanctions for 40 years and did not allow them to undermine the government of the country or to seriously affect us,” he said of Iran, suggesting they had much to teach Moscow.
United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based nonprofit advocacy organization, says Mokhber spent a large part of his career working at “important Bonyads implicated in Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, terrorism, corruption, mismanagement, human rights violations, and sanctions evasion.”
The Treasury Department described them as “opaque, quasi-official organizations that report directly to the Supreme Leader,” and said they were controlled by current and former government officials. It says a lack of accountability has “allowed systemic corruption and mismanagement to grow unchecked,” accumulating wealth without benefiting the Iranian people as promised.
Mokhber was most recently the head of Setad, an investment fund linked to Khamenei. Its full name is Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam, also known as the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO). It was established by Khamenei’s predecessor and derives many of its assets from property seized from Iranian citizens, according to Reuters.
Years later, during the height of the pandemic, Mokhber oversaw Setad’s effort to make a COVID-19 vaccine, through one of its foundations. The AP claims only a fraction of its promised millions of doses have ever made their way to the public.
Source: What to know about Mohammad Mokhber, who is stepping in as interim president of Iran
The Importance of Charity: A Response to a “Past-Static” Regime by the Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani
According to its leader Mohammed Mokhber, the EIKO had been tasked by the supreme leader to implement a resistance economy and thus has violated the rights of dissidents.
Mokhber was also among a group of seven Iranians that the European Union sanctioned in 2010 for involvement in “nuclear or ballistic missiles activities.” He was removed from the list two years later.
The Treasury Department has said Khameini uses the Mostazafan Foundation — a conglomerate of holdings in key sectors including finance, energy and mining — to “reward his allies under the pretense of charity.”
While at Mostazafan, Mokhber had a legal battle with two mobile phone service providers who wanted to enter the Iranian market. Turkcell ultimately alleged in legal filings that Mokhber used “improper influence up to and including negotiating with and on behalf of the Supreme Leader in MTN’s favor.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Mourners in black began gathering Tuesday for days of funerals and processions for Iran’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash, a government-led series of ceremonies aimed at both honoring the dead and projecting strength in an unsettled Middle East.
Mass demonstrations were important in helping bring about the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 2020, an estimated 1 million people will attend processions for the Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike.
“Raisi’s death comes at a moment when the Islamist regime is consolidated,” wrote Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert at the Middle East Institute. “In short, there will be no power vacuum in Tehran; nonetheless, post-Khamenei Iran suddenly looks far less predictable than it did just a few days ago.”
Raisi, the hometown of the dead, visited by thousands of mourners in a Tehran funeral procession and a shrine to the holy city Mashhad
The caskets of the dead slowly traveled through the streets of Tabriz, the nearest major city near the site of the crash. Thousands in black slowly walked beside the coffins, some throwing flowers up to them as an emcee wept through a loudspeaker for men he described as martyrs.
The bodies will travel to Tehran later in the day. On Wednesday, a funeral presided over by Khamenei will then turn into a procession as well. The hometown of Raisi will be visited on Thursday by a procession, followed by a funeral and burial at a shrine in the holy city of Mashhad, which is where the Shiite’s faith is buried in Iran.
Millions of pilgrims visit that shrine each year. Over the centuries, its grounds have served as the final burial site for heroes in Persian history. It is a rare honor in the faith. The body of Iranian President Mohammad-Ali Rajai, who was killed in a 1981 bombing, was buried in Tehran.
The Shiite faith and the government is more closely associated with the rural population in Iran. Tehran has held a completely different view of Raisi and his government’s policies as protests have roiled the capital for years.
Source: Mourners begin funerals for Iran’s president and others killed in helicopter crash
Mahsa Amini, the third woman killed in a military helicopter crash in Iran, a new Assembly of Experts in the wake of the Tabriz Friday election
The death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who was picked up over her loose hijab, was the most recent. Over 22,000 people were arrested and 500 people were killed in a security operation following the demonstrations. The UN investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for physical violence that led to Amini’s death.
Some people offered anti- government chants in the night after the helicopter crash was reported. Fireworks could be seen in some parts of the capital, though Sunday also marked a remembrance for Imam Reza, which can see them set off as well. Critical messages and dark jokes over the crash also circulated online.
The ISNA news agency said that the top prosecutor in Iran ordered cases be filed against those who insulted Raisi and other people who died in the crash.
The new Assembly of Experts opened on Tuesday after the election that chose a panel that included the late Tabriz Friday leader Mohammad Ali Ale-Heshem and Raisi. Flowers sat on the seats they would have occupied at the meeting of the 88-member panel, which is tasked with selecting the country’s next supreme leader.