Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi confirmed dead in helicopter crash.

CNN

-Helicopter he was in crashed due to foggy conditions, killing Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and seven others.

-Vice President Mohamed Mokhber is acting president in the wake of Raisi's death.

-Ali Bagheri Kani is acting foreign minister.

-Elections must be held within 50 days of acting presidency.

-Ayatollah orders five days of public mourning.

-Nations governments such as Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, UAE, and groups such as Hamas, Houthis, and Hezbollah send regards.

Well, he was called a "butcher" by Iranian freedom rights groups, so no mourning from me. Meanwhile, I wonder what this is going to do to the power of Iran with their president dying in office?

@nintendoboy16: I imagine countries like Iran have power structures that make the death of a president kind of irrelevant. I might be wrong.

A shame it wasn't more of them in the helicopter...

Yes, yes, yes...I know we shouldn't wish death on people and we should be respectful and classy and such...to people. But these aren't people, they're monsters.

Probably more like opportunistic coups. Someone will take power, and they'll either make excuses to support them or there will be a fight. But yeah I guess it is a structure of kinds.

Then again I am probably not giving Iran enough credit; they're a legitimate power with a structured government, so you're probably right.

I do not expect an honest election to occur, however.

Don't know much about either of these folks. A quick Google search shows that:

• Mokhber
  • Responsible for supplying Russia with drones during their invasion of Ukraine.
  • Was a medic in the army.
  • CEO of a telecommunications company
• Kani
  • Lead negotiator in the 2023 prisoner exchange between US and Iran
  • Seems like a "nepo baby" as he is the son and nephew of two other leaders in Iranian politics.
  • Has been serving in Iranian politics since 1990 and, as he is only 56 years old, was basically 20 years old when he got into politics. Hmmmm....

I hope whoever becomes the new president and leaders are... not doing acts that earns them names like "butcher".

Indeed, the "Ayatollah of Rockin'rolla" might be higher in the power structure than the two that perished! I could be wrong.

Regardless of the reputation this leader has by the people he is still a human being and has family that cares about him. Iran hasn’t got a good image for a lot of the leaders of the world but my condolences to his family and the country of Iran. Lord forgive him.

It is irrelevant. The leader of Iran is the Supreme Ruler who is the religious nutjob that has been in-charge for 30 yrs. Indeed, only two religious nutjobs have ruled Iran since the fall of the Shah.

The political infrastructure of Iran is subordinate to the religious infrastructure and this is built into their Constitution. In practice, you have to be approved by the Supreme Leader to run for President and over the years he has on occasionally allowed slightly more liberal candidates (emphasis on slightly) as he reads national and international sentiment.

In short, Iran is 100% a religious dictatorship and all policy is directed and approved by the zealot in charge. Iranian Presidents are effectively figureheads trotted out on TV so they can pretend that the will of the people means something.

Fireworks were going off in Tehran.

Good. Hope it was painful.

I don't believe this was an "accident".

No he was a religious fucking fruit cake who abused his power, not sure why any lord would forgive him?

Lay off the conspiracy theories. Already seeing enough conspiracy theories on Twitter blaming the CIA.

... who killed 5000 people....

On top of other shit.

Iran has had trouble with air travel for a while now due to sanctions.

"From 1929 to 2023, 253 plane crashes have been recorded in Iran, which have claimed around 3, 335 lives. Central to the US sanctions against Iranian aviation is a bar on the country's import of any planes or aircraft equipment built with more than 10 percent US parts."

But, even if it was, who cares?

Yeah.. It's not like the CIA has ever attempted regime change in foreign countries

The CIA they need to be investigated - drain. the. swamp.

@sargentd: No evidence they did it this time. Not like they had a weather machine.

Someone needs to investigate the allies for pressuring Hitler into shooting himself in the head.

Not saying there couldn't be any shady shit going on, but to just assume it's Mossad or CIA or whatever is a bit of a jump. If you believe that you should also believe it was probably a Iranian competitor as well. Who knows, really?

Western powers could have taken this guy out whenever. Between satellites, drones, special forces, etc. there would have been plenty of chances over the years.

The fact is we don't really gain anything by replacing most leaders, and it's often better to go with the devil you know than to replace them.

Also while I will never put the US intelligence services on a pedestal I'd like to think we've learned some lessons over the years, i.e. don't overthrow nations "cuz communism" and so on.

I suppose the CIA was responsible for Kobe Bryant then too then, and also the Ukranian minister of internal affairs. Because helicopters are invincible and never crash unless the man did it.

In my defense.

That's all I said

And people got offended lol

Yah, but you possess the capacity to think.

The CIA didn't overthrow regimes in the past simply because of communism. That was just an excuse. The real reason was to eliminate threats to American imperialism. Nothing has changed in that regard. The CIA still serves the same purpose today.

With that said, I doubt the CIA were directly involved in this incident. It's more likely to be either an accident or related to internal Iranian politics. It wouldn't really make sense for the CIA to make a martyr of him, as that would only be counter-productive to the CIA's goal of regime change in Iran.

I think that's why he air quoted and had the memematic misspelling of "because".

The reason governments got overthrown in middle east post colonization early days was simply due to money (and israel shenanigans).

Iran nationalized their oil company and it made UK mad as UK controls 51% of iran oil company. They then enlisted US help to embargo the shit out of iran, saying oil property belongs to UK and its stolen from them and later overthrown the popular democratically elected prime minister. Iran was one of the earliest adopter of democracy in the region they literally forced their king to it. Probably would have been at least a non alligned nation had not UK and USA dicked around and indirectly contributed to the nation's revolution in !979.