The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash this month has prompted two scrambles for power, both for power and for Raisi’s place as a leading candidate to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “supreme leader.”
Under the rules of the Iranian theocracy, the “Supreme Leader“ is a Shiite Muslim cleric with dictatorial powers who directly controls the more powerful and aggressive wing of the Iranian military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
The Supreme Leader has final say on all domestic and foreign policies of any consequence, appoints most of Iran’s top officials, and manipulates much of Iran’s wealth through a series of phony “charitable trusts.” The interim president following Raisi’s death, Mohammad Mokhber, rose to power by managing the largest of these trusts.
The Supreme…
