Iran International
Hardliners, hardliners and more hardliners are going to be the likely choices Iranians will have to choose from when it comes to next month’s snap election after the death of their president in a helicopter crash.
“It's just a contest between different hardliners, and they're all devoted to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamanei,” said Arash Azizi, Iran analyst and author of ‘What Iranians Want: Woman, Life, Freedom.
Azizi said an important question is which hardliners will run and which organizations will support it, and if centrists and so-called reformists are allowed to run, who will it be and how will everyday Iranians react given epic low voter turnouts in the last few years?
In March, less than 10% of Iranians voted in parliamentary by-elections. Many observers believe real turnout in the last two previous elections has been around 20-30 per cent.
As the registration for Iran’s presidential elections draws near on May 30 and closes on June 3, Azizi ’s list of potential candidates are as follows:
Saeed Jalili: He’s an ultra-hardliner who confirmed his candidacy this weekend. According to Azizi, he is unpopular and "very widely hated.” Azizi described his main path to be ordering the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to beat up women on the streets of Iran. Jalili was the secretary of the National Security Council between 2005 to 2013 and was the chief nuclear negotiator. Azizi said “he was an absolute disaster in that position.” With a PhD on diplomacy of the Prophet Mohammad, Azizi said Jalili was not the ‘career diplomat’ type to get the job done.
Parviz Fattah: Azizi said he was the head of the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Orders Headquarters. “They're called parastatal foundations. It is an organization, whose head is appointed by Khamenei. And they were built by expropriating the wealth of, you know, Iranians before 1979. And they use that to do all sorts of things,” said Azizi. He said Fattah’s base is with the IRGC and military caste.
Saeed Mohammad: Azizi described him as being similar to Fattah and came from a background in the IRGC. He’s much younger than other potential candidates being in his 50s and he tried to run in 2021 but was barred from the Guardian Council.
Ali Larijani: Azizi calls him a “Centrist conservative” only because he supported so-called centrist former President Hassan Rouhani in the past election. He’s the former speaker of the parliament and hails from the religious center of Qom. “He is also currently from the foundation of the regime. His brother was the head of the Expediency Council. Sadeq Larijani, who was the former head of the judiciary, a potential kind of a Supreme Leader even at some point, one of his other brothers, was a key sort of people person in the Iranian Foreign ministry for many years, the key clerical family that had been sidelined by the regime in recent years,” added Azizi.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is the current Parliament Speaker. Azizi said Ghalibaf is “also a conservative hardliner in some way, but known to be much more technocratic than ideological.” According to Azizi’s sources there was a meeting between Iran’s Supreme Leader and Ghalibaf that did not go well. He said he has a lot of political ambition with a deep IRGC past.
Freelance journalist and former senior analyst with the US government Behrouz Turani believes the conservative camp is going to win the election with the full support of the Interior Ministry, the Guardian Council and the Supreme leader.
“Iranians have not been going to the polls to vote, at least since 2021, because they don't have anyone to vote for. That is, the main problem about the Iranian election. It's not representative. It's not fair. It's not free. It generally depends on what the political system and what the Supreme Leader want from the election,” said Turani.
He said that no one in Iran can directly elect their president, instead “the biases and preferences for the Guardian Council, which is, supervised by, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” decide how things will go.
The elections are happening during an economic crisis as Turani put it, “the biggest crisis in the lifetime of the Islamic Republic in the past 45 years.”
“This election is tremendously important for the government, but the nation has shown during the past maybe eight years even that they have no interest whatsoever in any kind of elections because they, are led by the government itself to believe that, no president, no parliament in Iran is going to serve their interest,” Turani told Iran International.
He said if Larijani is allowed to run for president there may be some sort of chance for the US and Iran to resume ties and that would help with what Turani described as a ‘catastrophic’ economic situation in the country.
Turani pointed out the timing of Iran’s elections are critical with the US elections only a few months away. Azizi said even political commentators in Iran have said whoever takes charge needs to be able to come up against Donald Trump if he is elected president.
"Tehran is definitely thinking about Trump," said Azizi.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that Iran's estimated stockpile of enriched uranium had reached more than 30 times the limit set out in the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers.
According to a confidential IAEA report, which Iran International has read and reviewed, as of May 11, Iran has 142.1 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 percent which is an increase of 20.6 kilograms since that last report by the UN watchdog in February.
“It's a pretty grim picture of Iran's advancing nuclear program,” said Andrea Stricker, the Deputy Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense program.
Stricker told Iran International that Iran is getting dangerously close to gaining nuclear weapons and time is of the essence.
“Now they [Iran] have enough, at the 60% level, to make almost four nuclear weapons. And that material can be used directly in a nuclear device, if a country chose, and then there's enough for probably more than 13 weapons overall, and they can fabricate that into weapons grade uranium within around five months.”
“Then it would take additional time, at least six months for them to be able to fabricate that fuel into a crude nuclear device. And then even longer, perhaps more than a year, to be able to put it on a ballistic missile,” said Stricker.
“Basically, once you get to 20%, you have done most of the work on a technical level, and then it's only a matter of days, for example, to transfer 60% enriched uranium to weapons grade. And that's what we're looking at, a very short breakout time, perhaps less than seven days to make the weapons grade uranium for one bomb,” she added.
Could Iran acquire a bomb?
Patrick Clawson, a Research Counselor at The Washington Institute, said the latest developments are disturbing.
"It's very discouraging because, a year ago, the United States government thought that it had reached an informal agreement with Iran where Iran would essentially stop its production of 60% enriched uranium in return to the United States not making too much effort to stop Iranian sales of oil to China," said Clawson.
The nuclear watchdog's warning comes in the backdrop of escalating tensions in the region. Just last month Iran and Israel, for the first time, conducted direct strikes on each other's territories.
"The International Atomic Energy Agency's chief, Mr. Grossi, says that Iran could produce the fissile material for a bomb in about a week," said Clawson.
For a bomb delivered by a missile, however, Clawson said it could take up to a year.
"A year is not that long," he added.
Stricker believes Iran's advancements could empower the Islamic Republic by giving it a “nuclear deterrent," allowing it to “pursue arming its proxies to have them destabilize other governments and countries, and launch attacks.”
Shifting paradigms in the Middle East
According to a report released Monday by the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration is pressing its European allies not to confront Iran on its nuclear program.
The report said the US was arguing against an effort by Britain and France to disapprove Iran at the IAEA's member state board.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA chief, has previously warned the UN agency cannot guarantee that none of Iran’s centrifuges may have been used for clandestine enrichment.
Former President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Under the original deal, struck in 2015 by the Obama administration, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67% purity, maintain a stockpile of about 300 kilograms and use only very basic IR-1 centrifuges.
In mid-May, Kamal Kharrazi, a senior advisor to Iran's ruler Ali Khamenei, said that Iran would be left with no option than to change its nuclear doctrine if Israel threatened its nuclear facilities amid heightened tensions.
The US State department deputy spokesperson said, in response, when asked about Kharrazi's comments during a press briefing, that the US would not allow Iran to build a nuclear bomb.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson later said in Tehran that Kharrazi's remarks were not the official position of the Islamic Republic.
There is great risk at one point, according to Clawson, that the Islamic Republic decides the time is right for Iran to move forward.
"If Iran were to explode a nuclear device, much less to test an actual bomb that would change the Middle East, and in particular, it would put a lot of pressure on a place like Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have for years, said to the United States, If Iran gets a bomb, we'll get a bomb," he said.
On Friday, the first formal report by the General Staff of the Armed Forces on the helicopter incident was published. Although this report ruled out the possibility of the chopper being shot down, it did not state the main reason for the crash and mentioned that “more time is needed for a definitive conclusion”.
Adding to the perplexity, it has come to light that the President's bodyguard was notably absent from the ill-fated helicopter.
Raisi’s chief of staff’s account vs preliminary official report
An interview with Gholamhossein Esmaeili, Raisi's chief of staff and a member of the president's entourage, has further contributed to the confusion.
In the early hours of May 19th, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi embarked on a journey, accompanied by his entourage, from Tehran to Tabriz.
Timeline of events on May 19th according to Iran President chief of staff:
6:00 AM (Tehran Time): Iran's president and his entourage flew from Tehran to Tabriz, located in the East Azerbaijan province of northwestern Iran, by plane.
7:15/30 AM: From Tabriz, three helicopters were utilized for a project visit in Agh Band.
9:00 AM: The second leg of the journey proceeded from Agh Band to Khoda Afarin, near the Giz Galasi Dam, with further plans for travel.
1:00 PM: The final leg was supposed to be from Khoda Afarin towards Tabriz, but the helicopter crash prevented the completion of the journey.
1:35 PM: En route to Tabriz, the helicopters attempted to avoid a “cloud Layer” by increasing their altitude. While the first and third helicopters successfully navigated the clouds, the president’s helicopter, flying in the middle, disappeared. It was later discovered to have crashed, resulting in the deaths of all its passengers. Iran President chief of staff stated: "We emerged from the cloud layer very normally, even without any turbulence."
Esmaeili's account highlights two crucial points. The first point is his statement that the "weather was favorable, with no issues”.
Noor News, an agency close to the Supreme National Security Council, also reported that all necessary safety measures had been implemented to ensure the president's helicopter flight was secure.
The short six-item report by the General Staff of the Armed Forces also did not mention weather conditions at the time of the incident and stated on item six of the report that "no suspicious issues were observed in the communications between the control tower and the flight crew." This raises questions about the suddenness of the incident.
Signals from the chopper post-crash
Esmaeili's account also sheds light on his communication with cleric Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, a passenger aboard the helicopter, post-crash.
Esmaeili explains that he attempted to contact the pilot, but Al-Hashem answered the phone instead. He reveals that he queried Al-Hashem about the incident, to which he responded that “he did not understand what has happened”.
In the interview, he stated that he was in contact with Al-Hashem for three to four hours after the incident. However, the alleged surviving passenger was found dead when rescue teams arrived, although his body was not burned like that of Raisi and others.
While “most likely the transponder system was turned off or that the helicopter did not have one,” as stated by the Turkish transport minister, the questions is if there was a mobile signal for up to three hours after the crash. In that case, why pinpointing the coordinates of the helicopter wreckage took 15 hours?
The mystery of the absent bodyguard
The latest images of Ebrahim Raisi show his bodyguard was almost always at his side. However, the released list of casualties revealed that he was not onboard.
Given that the Bell 212 helicopter can accommodate 15 passengers but only had 8 on board, the question arises: why did Ebrahim Raisi’s personal bodyguard continue the journey in a different helicopter?
Javad Mehrabi, the bodyguard of Iran's President, continued the journey in one of the other two helicopters accompanying the president.
General Esmaeil Kosari, a former IRGC commander and current member of parliament, dismissed claims about the status of the president's guards, stating, "Some media outlets are fabricating irrelevant statements.
The second guard was in a separate helicopter as there was no necessity for multiple guards in one aircraft."
However, HamMihan Newspaper in Iran reported suggestions that some passengers may have been reassigned to another helicopter at the last minute before the flight. A video report published May 26 by state broadcaster IRIB shows him getting off the President’s chopper during a landing.
What might have caused the helicopter crash?
Pinpointing the exact cause of the May 19 fatal crash is challenging. Such investigations are long and complex processes. But when it comes to the Iranian government, any such report should be taken with a pinch of salt.
The Armed Forces Staff is the same organization that, after 73 hours of denials, finally admitted that "Ukrainian Airlines flight PS752... was hit [with missiles] due to human error and unintentionally..."
The flight was struck by two missiles from the Revolutionary Guards killing all 176 people on board. Iranian officials attributed the plane crash to technical failure for 73 hours. Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Britain are seeking damages for the families of the people on board who were killed and believe that Iran did not conduct a fair, transparent, and impartial investigation and prosecution.
Also, the Ontario Court of Justice ruled in 2023 that the shooting down of Flight PS752 by the Iranian military constitutes "terrorist activity".
Potential causes might include:
1- Weather condition: Some in Iran attribute the crash to adverse weather conditions. A member of the helicopter search and rescue team stated in an exclusive interview with Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, that the "weather factor" can be considered the cause of the crash. However, this contrasts sharply with the account given by the President's chief of staff, who was part of the president's entourage and reported that the "weather was favorable, with no issues."
2- Technical Failure: Catastrophic mechanical failures, like the rear rotor mechanism malfunction that occurred in the King Power Stadium crash, are not unprecedented and could have contributed to the Iran helicopter crash.
3- Human error: Human error remains a constant specter in aviation mishaps. Errors in altitude reading, for example, could have played a role in this incident.
4- Explosive Sabotage: In the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is stated that “the pilot established contact with the pilot of another helicopter approximately one and a half minutes before the helicopter crash”. This again reinforces the hypothesis of a sudden and unprecedented incident.
Farzin Nadimi, a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute, did not rule out the possibility of sabotage in the helicopter crash. He stressed the importance of conducting a thorough investigation and suggested that various types of "small bombs" could have been employed, including remote-controlled or altitude-triggered explosives. Examining the wreckage could yield crucial evidence.
The mysterious death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who attempted an unsuccessful coup against Russia’s Vladimir Putin and perished in a crash involving his private jet, underscores the impact of such incidents on both leaders and adversaries.