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The Butcher Is Dead. What Comes Next for Iran?
The Free Press ^ | 21 May, 2024 | Reuel Marc Gerecht

Posted on 05/22/2024 6:08:22 AM PDT by MtnClimber

In the 24 hours after the unexpected death of the Islamic Republic’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, the following things happened: the BBC published a headline about his “mixed legacy,” the UN flew its flag at half-staff to honor him, and the U.S. Senate chaplain offered a prayer for him on the Senate floor.

Such morally bankrupt responses would shock Iranians who launched fireworks in cities across the country after his death, took to social media to celebrate it, and handed out candy in the street.

The question is whether the people celebrating on social media, and the ones keeping their disgust for the regime out of the limelight, can convulse the theocracy’s political system. In 50 days, according to Iranian law, the government must hold a presidential election. Will Iranians take to the streets in great numbers?

Never underestimate the Iranian people, who have consistently risen up over the last decade. The last regime-shaking protests were sparked by a young Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, who died while she was in the custody of the morality police in 2022 for not wearing a headscarf.

Given Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s success last year in violently suppressing those protests—at least 516 people were killed, almost 900 injured, and 20,000 jailed—the 85-year-old won’t be squeamish in crushing rallies that again challenge the theocracy’s legitimacy.

But Khamenei must be wary because beneath the surface, Iran is essentially a volcano—a large magma pool of discontent always pressing against the security services, hunting for a weak point, a provocation, that will crack the fear that keeps back an eruption. Raisi’s death won’t likely produce a tremor, but whenever the regime’s security services confront the Iranian people, a fissure might happen.

One thing that won’t change is the Biden administration’s approach to Iran.

Although Raisi wasn’t the worst mullah that Khamenei could have advanced to the presidency in 2021 (there were a few even more brutal and religiously twisted), he was among those whose evil was clearly documented. Raisi earned the sobriquet “The Butcher of Tehran” when he served as the prosecutor general of the city between 1989 and 1994. He participated in a so-called death commission that ordered the executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. And yet, after his “election,” the Biden administration didn’t hesitate to try to reestablish another nuclear deal and some kind of peaceful regional modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic.

Our strategic reality is this: Iran could have Jack the Ripper as president and Joe Biden and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, would still choose to continue Barack Obama’s policy of engagement.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: shiite

1 posted on 05/22/2024 6:08:22 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Maybe it will be the spark for the people to oust the mullahs.


2 posted on 05/22/2024 6:08:39 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

Never happen...


3 posted on 05/22/2024 6:09:20 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: MtnClimber

Lots more where that butcher came from.


4 posted on 05/22/2024 6:11:45 AM PDT by brownsfan (It's going to take real, serious, hard times to wake the American public.)
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To: MtnClimber

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.


5 posted on 05/22/2024 6:13:49 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

Like the protests in 2009 this would be an outstanding opportunity for our government to support the opposition. Which we should have done then, should have been doing on an ongoing basis, and won't do now

6 posted on 05/22/2024 6:14:16 AM PDT by SJackson (There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them Churchill)
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To: MtnClimber

The Butcher Is Dead. What Comes Next for Iran?


A new butcher will arise.


7 posted on 05/22/2024 6:26:27 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: dfwgator

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Was my first thought. The history of Revolutions shows the new ruler/government is rarely better than the last one. Vegas, baby. And the odds are in the house favor.


8 posted on 05/22/2024 6:26:34 AM PDT by BBQToadRibs2
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To: MtnClimber

Let me guess, a new butcher.


9 posted on 05/22/2024 6:27:31 AM PDT by spincaster
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To: brownsfan

“What Comes Next for Iran?”

Another butcher, probably in training for just such a contingency.

Got to protect the butcher species, you know. Shi’ite Islam depends on their constant replenishment.

Even the Shah complained of the recalcitrance of the Farsi people. The Shah was not overthrown by an outside military force or even foreign backed insurgents but by the Iranian people themselves. One can certainly argue that since 1979 the Iranian Theocratic government has made terrible decisions (most of which would be indistinguishable from what the Shah himself may have done) and Iran is not a happy place to live by any means.


10 posted on 05/22/2024 6:29:03 AM PDT by alloysteel (Most people slog through life without ever knowing the wonders of true insanity.)
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To: All
A Master Builder or a Master Butcher?


11 posted on 05/22/2024 6:32:53 AM PDT by BipolarBob (Why aren't eleven and twelve pronounced like one teen and two teen?)
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To: MtnClimber

Butcher = guy who was pro-life — just saying


12 posted on 05/22/2024 6:47:19 AM PDT by George from New England (escaped CT back in 2006)
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To: brownsfan

Yep. Kill one and 10 more step right up.


13 posted on 05/22/2024 6:57:10 AM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: MtnClimber

“The Butcher is dead. What comes next for Iran?”

Probably another butcher.


14 posted on 05/22/2024 6:59:17 AM PDT by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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To: MtnClimber

Nothing will change there.


15 posted on 05/22/2024 7:25:24 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Are you ready for Black Lives MAGA? It's coming.)
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To: dfwgator

And may he meet a similar fate


16 posted on 05/22/2024 7:30:46 AM PDT by bigbob
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To: MtnClimber

I have more hope for the Iranian people than any other country in the middle east. They have proven - time and again - that they are not afraid to rise up against the islamo-fascists that run the country, even under peril of death. All they need is a little help, and some guns.

In this modern day of surveillance tech and heavily armed thugs it is extremely difficult for any population to rise and overthrow the fascist yoke. But I expect Iranians have a better shot than Russians or Chinese, much less NORKs.


17 posted on 05/22/2024 12:16:09 PM PDT by KingofZion
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To: KingofZion
I have more hope for the Iranian people than any other country in the middle east. They have proven - time and again - that they are not afraid to rise up against the islamo-fascists that run the country, even under peril of death. All they need is a little help, and some guns.

It's been over 40 frickin' years!

18 posted on 05/22/2024 12:16:43 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: KingofZion

I also have hope for the Iranian people to throw off the yoke of the islamist tyrants. We need to be air dropping Liberator pistols.


19 posted on 05/22/2024 12:34:32 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

Answer: Another butcher.


20 posted on 05/22/2024 12:58:46 PM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel
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