Mahsa Amini

Ebrahim Raisi, the hardliner jurist-turned-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, died in a plane crash over the weekend after coming back from a ceremony marking a new joint dam project with Azerbaijan. Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was also on board, perished in the crash as well.  Few Iranians outside the political system will mourn their deaths. Raisi, for instance, was a notorious, unapologetic defender of the Iranian regime and first got involved in its machinations in his mid-twenties. In 1988, he served on a panel that handed down death sentences for thousands of dissidents.

Iran has been transfixed by two deaths: one that didn’t happen and one that shouldn’t have happened. Last week, rumors swept Tehran that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had died. Subsequent reporting revealed he may have been gravely ill. He has since made two public appearances, but his health scare was a reminder that the Islamic Republic’s most powerful man has no designated successor. When the old donkey dies, Iran’s factious elite will have to fight it out as to who will take his place. This week, protesters all over Iran gathered to denounce the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a young woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality patrols after being picked up for a loose headscarf.