Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian president and one of the main contenders to succeed the country’s supreme leader, was killed on Sunday. in a helicopter accident. He was 63 years old.
A conservative Shiite Muslim cleric who participated in some of the most brutal crackdowns against opponents of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Raisi was a protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and staunch defender of religious rule in the country.
Mr. Raisi’s presidency has been shaped by two major events: the 2022 national uprising, led by women and girls, demanding an end to Islamic Republic rule and the government’s brutal crushing of that movement; and the current Middle East war with Israel, with which Israel has a long history of clandestine attacks.
As president of the Iranian political system, Mr. Raisi did not define the country’s nuclear or regional policy. But he inherited a government that was gradually expanding its regional influence through a network of mandated militias and a nuclear program that quickly reached weapons-grade uranium enrichment levels after the United States left the deal. nuclear.
Mr. Raisi endorsed and supported both policies and considered them essential for Iran to maintain its influence in the region and exert its influence over the West.
His death came as a shadow war that lasted for years became a direct confrontation following the Israeli military attack on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7.
Mr. Raisi was born in Mashhad, in the northeast of the country, to a family of clerics, and he studied at the country’s famous seminary in Qum before participating, at the age of 18, in the Islamic revolution of 1979, which deposed the Iranian shah. Just two years later, Mr. Raisi became a judge in the newly created Islamic Republic, beginning a gradual rise to the top of Iranian politics.
Like Mr. Khamenei and his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic revolution, Mr. Raisi wore the black turban of a cleric, reserved for “sayyids”, that is to say people whose lineage dates back to the prophet Muhammad.
The question of succession in Iran has become more urgent because Mr. Khamenei is 85 years old and frail. The selection of the next supreme leader is an opaque process of rivalries and political maneuvering. Under the Constitution, an elected body of clerics called the Assembly of Experts chooses the supreme leader.
Mr. Raisi was seen as a leading contender for the post and was favored by the hard-line faction, as was Ayatollah Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, an influential cleric who helps run his father’s office. Mr. Raisi’s death essentially paves the way for the younger Mr. Khamenei to succeed his father.
Political analysts have described Mr. Raisi as a loyal enforcer of Mr. Khamenei’s policies and a facilitator of the growing power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iranian politics and economy.
“He was not someone who exuded charisma. His speeches did not encourage people to take to the streets. He was executing policy,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. “He was above all a member of the regime. He was an ideologue who worked within and across the system.
Mr. Raisi’s supporters, including conservative pundits in state media, have praised him for reimposing strict religious and social rules, for being intolerant of dissent and for hijacking Iranian politics. of the West towards increased engagement with Russia and China.
From 2016 to 2019, Mr. Raisi was head of Astan Quds Razavi, a powerful multibillion-dollar religious conglomerate under the control of Mr. Khamenei and considered one of the its main sources of wealth.
In 2019, Mr. Raisi became head of Iran’s judiciary, and during his tenure he oversaw some of the most brutal crackdowns on dissent. At least 500 people were killed nationwide protests in November 2019 in response to soaring fuel prices. The courts arrested activists, journalists, lawyers and citizens with dual nationality.
He became president in 2021 in an election widely seen as orchestrated to ensure his victory, with his most serious rivals disqualified.
Mr. Raisi campaigned as an anti-corruption candidate, but rose to the presidency amid condemnation from government opponents and international rights groups. Rights groups have highlighted Mr Raisi’s track record as a member of a four-person panel who ordered the execution of 5,000 political dissidents in 1988 without trial at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Mr Raisi did not deny being part of the panel and said in a speech that he was a young official appointed to the post by the then supreme leader.
“We have lost a generation of political minds and activists who could have been important players in Iranian society,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran.
Mr. Raisi, he argued, played a role in several of the most repressive moments in Iranian history, particularly the crackdown on anti-government protests in 2009 and 2022.
Mr. Raisi took office three years after Donald J. Trump, as president, withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. After the United States withdrew from the deal, Mr. Trump reimposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran, affecting the country’s oil sales and banks. A year later, after Iran failed to reap the benefits of the nuclear deal, it resumed enriching uranium to near-weapons levels.
Mr. Raisi took office promising to pursue “resistance diplomacy”, that is to say a challenge to Western powers but an openness to negotiations, in particular with the United States, to return to the nuclear agreement and seek to lift sanctions. But months of negotiations failed in the fall of 2021 and no agreement was reached with the Biden administration.
One of Mr. Raisi’s most important foreign policy achievements as president was one that had long eluded his predecessors: restoring ties with Iran’s longtime regional adversary, Iran. Saudi Arabia. In 2023, the two countries signed an agreement in Beijing to restore diplomatic relations. Although largely symbolic, the deal was seen as key to defusing their regional rivalry.
Raisi prioritized building closer ties with Russia and China and moving away from the West, saying Iran could no longer trust the United States and Europe after the failure of the nuclear deal. Mr Raisi’s government has achieved a vast 25-year economic, security and military agreement with China: Iran agreed to sell discounted oil to Beijing in exchange for $400 billion in investments in Iran by Chinese companies across a wide range of sectors.
He also traveled frequently to Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir V. Putin, and they deepened their security and military relations. Iran sold drones to Russia, which used them in its war in Ukraine, although Mr. Raisi has denied this role.
Mr. Raisi’s impact on domestic politics during his presidency was felt much more deeply, and his legacy will likely be contested. Under his rule, the country experienced severe economic recessions, caused by international sanctions and high unemployment.
“If you want to think about his legacy, he left the country’s economy in shambles, and it became more repressive,” said Sina Azodi, a lecturer on Iran at George Washington University. “Iran has never been democratic or free, but since 2021, political repression has intensified. No dissenting voices are tolerated.
Under Mr. Raisi’s leadership, the Iranian currency plunged to a record low, climate change and mismanagement have intensified water shortagesand the country was hit in January by the deadliest terrorist attack since the founding of the republic in 1979.
Mr. Raisi also oversaw a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests that erupted in 2022 after the death of a 21-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, while she was in the custody of the Iranian morality police. Her death sparked a wave of protests led by women who removed their headscarves and called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
After many Iranian women defied the mandatory hijab rule and appeared in public for more than a year without covering their hair, Mr. Raisi announced this spring that he would strengthen the hijab rule. His government returned the morality police to the streets in April, after earlier saying the force had been abolished and many arrests of women turned violent.
Alleged human rights violations, for which the United States imposed sanctions on Mr. Raisi in 2019, dogged him on the international stage until the final years of his life.
Last December, he canceled a visit to the United Nations in Geneva, fearing arrest for his alleged role in the 1988 mass executions, because Sweden prosecutes younger Iranian judicial official for crimes against humanity. But Mr. Raisi attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York every year, giving impassioned speeches blaming dissent in Iran on foreign enemies, while describing his country as a model of good governance and a defender of human rights. ‘man.
Mr. Raisi is survived by his wife, Jamileh Alamolhoda, a university professor of philosophy and education and daughter of an influential ultra-hardline cleric, Ahmad Alamolhoda. The couple have two daughters and at least one grandchild.
