Amir Cohen/Reuters/File
World
Live updates: Helicopter carrying Iranian President Raisi crashes, state media says
10:41 p.m. ET, May 19, 2024
Helicopter crash comes at a fraught time for region — and Iran itself
Amir Cohen/Reuters/File
The crash of a helicopter carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister comes at an especially fraught moment in the Middle East – and for Iran domestically.
Israel’s war against Hamas and the subsequent humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded in Gaza over the last seven months has inflamed global opinion and sent tensions soaring across the Middle East.
It has also brought a decades-long shadow war between Iran and Israel out into the open.
Since then the tit-for-tat direct strikes between the two have stopped. But the proxy war continues with Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah continuing to fight Israel’s forces.
The country was convulsed by youth-led demonstrations against clerical rule and worsening economic conditions following the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s notorious morality police.
Iranian authorities have since launched a widening crackdown on dissent in response to the protests.
And while the protests for now have largely stopped, opposition to clerical leadership remains deeply entrenched among many Iranians, especially the young, who yearn for reform, jobs and a move away from stifling religious rule.
A former hardline judiciary chief with his own brutal human rights record, Raisi was elected president in 2021 in a vote that was heavily engineered by the Islamic Republic’s political elite so that he would run virtually uncontested.
While he is president, his powers are dwarfed by those of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who is the final arbiter of domestic and foreign affairs in the Islamic Republic.