Opinion: Iran’s president is dead. The cruel show goes on | CNN (2024)

Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and senior columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Viewmore opinionon CNN.

CNN —

The official tone from state-controlled Iranian media was grave and mournful on Sunday night as searchers struggled to reach the wreckage of the helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi, 63,and other top officials after it crashed into the mountains in blinding fog.

Frida Ghitis

Occasionally, however,celebratory fireworksstreaked intothe sky, a reminder that Raisi, and the regime that controls the Islamic Republic of Iran with increasing ruthlessness, is reviled by large segments of the population.

On social media, youngIranians rejoicedat what would soon be confirmed as the deaths of hardliners Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and others, enforcers of a regime that hascrushed their freedoms.

In the hours, weeks and months ahead, Iran’s power centers willno doubtengage in fierce infighting for key positions as the Islamic Republic selects a new president–the country’ssecondmost powerful position–and constructsthe alignments that will determine who becomes the next supreme leader, the man who will succeed Ali Khamenei, 85, gaining ultimate and absolute authority.

Raisi, a loyal Khamenei acolyte, was one of the favorites for that job.So his death not only vacates the No. 2 spot, it also sends the contest for the top job into turmoil.

It’s remarkable inthis crucial battle over the future of Iran and who will lead it potentially for years if not decades to come, that millions of Iranians – perhaps even the majorityof the people – will have no voice, no one to represent their views.

This moment of internal flux comes at a fraught time. The Middle East is watching anxiously as Israel and Hamas fight in Gaza. Hamas, one ofIran’s proxy militias, is receiving backing from other armed groups with close ties to Iran —Hezbollah in Lebanon and theHouthis in Yemen, all of which oppose the existence of Israel. Amid fears that the Gaza war will become aregional conflagration, Iran is a key player.

It was only a few weeks ago that Iran had its firstdirect confrontation with Israel, launching rockets and missiles after Israel struck itsembassy complex in Damascus.The world held its breath as the two regional powers clashed. The flare-up died down without escalating.

Iran is also an important player in Russia’s war against Ukraine, providing the Kremlin with mass quantities ofmilitary dronesit has used to attack Ukrainians, and becoming part of a nascent bloc of anti-Western nations along with Russia, China and North Korea.

The unfolding reshuffling of power in Tehran is also of great interest to Arab countries. Iran’s traditional rival, Saudi Arabia, will be watching closely.

But it is inside Iran where the quest for power will unfold, and where its impact will be most directly felt.

The internal machinations are unlikely to produce a significant change in its stance toward the West, or toward the country’s own people.

Expectclerics and security forces–the military and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) –tocompete to see who can gain the upper hand, with hardliners in both groups seeking to position themselves for dominance.

The chance of a kinder, gentler Iran emerging after new presidential elections are held in50 daysare essentially nil. Moderates, reformers, liberals and democracy supporters have gradually but steadily lost their influence within the regime.

The Islamic Republic’s claim to democratic legitimacy within its mixed system of clerical and elected rule evaporated after therigged 2021 electionthat brought Raisi to power.

Years ago, Iranian elections, restricted as they were, held an element of truth. Occasionally, a reformer would be elected. No more. The supremely uncharismatic Raisi ran in 2017 and lost. In 2021, the regime disqualifiedall but sevenout ofthe nearly600 prospective candidates, leaving only Raisi in an uncompetitive field, making sure that Khamenei’s hand-picked choice would win.

Even so, Iranians sent an electoral message. He won, but most voters spoiled their ballots or stayed home, with thelowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.

They knew who Raisi was. He had made a name for himself from the earliest days of the revolution, sendingthousands of political prisonersto their deaths in mass executions as part of the four-member so-called “death commissions” in 1988 thatgave prisoners the deadly option to clear minefields for the Army, according toAmnesty International. Those who refused were executed.

After the 2009 election, widely believed to have been won by a reformist candidate denied victory by the regime, Raisi was instrumental in the violent crackdown against protesters in the so-calledGreen Movement.

Later, he became head of the judiciary, overseeing a tightening of restrictions and a brutal repression of the2019 pro-democracy, anti-regime protests.

The USsanctioned himfor his role in the“regime’s domestic and foreign oppression.”

Having won the backing of the supreme leader partly due to his loyalty and willingness to enforce control at all cost, he became president in 2021. The next year, when Mahsa Amini died after her arrest by religious police who found her head cover insufficiently modest, a new popular uprising exploded across the country.

Women rejected the mandatory hijab, crying out“Women, Life, Freedom.”Raisi oversaw the crackdown against peaceful protests in what human rights organizations called“a tsunami of torture”withtens of thousands of arrestsandhundredsof arbitrary executions.

Now Raisi is dead and the odds are that he will be replaced by another hardliner.

For Iranians who celebrated his demise, left out of the planning for the future of their country, the only consolation is that no regime lasts forever. Their revolution remains postponed, not cancelled.