By Dave Patterson
On a foggy mountaintop in northwestern Iran, a helicopter carrying Iran’s 63-year-old President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and six others, including three crew, crashed on May 19, killing all on board. The leadership vacuum in Iran will probably not linger because Raisi, though influential, mainly just carried out the wishes of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, 85. As a hardline cleric, Raisi was known for his brutal suppression of dissent – and there are no signs that substantial change will follow in the wake of his demise.
Raisi had been at the forefront of supporting Iran’s attacks on US facilities and the recent missile and drone barrage on Israel. Details of the helicopter crash on Sunday are sparse. Still, according to The New York Times, “They were traveling from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan after inaugurating a dam project when their helicopter went down in a mountainous area near the city of Jolfa.” An Iranian news service claimed the fatal accident was the result of “technical........