jordan pulse -

Dr. Monther Al-Howarat

A state of shock and astonishment prevailed after the Iranian authorities announced an emergency and difficult landing of the president’s plane due to conditions it faced, followed by hours of silence.

Time passed without the appearance of the president and his important entourage, most notably his Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian.

This was accompanied by severe contradictions in the news. Meanwhile, official entities announced large numbers of rescue teams searching for the president to no avail. After 13 hours, Iran requested assistance from several countries to search for the missing president, who is now reported to be deceased. Eventually, rumors surfaced of a crashed plane, of which only the tail remained, and bodies that were barely identifiable.


Immediately, interpretations began, ranging between three scenarios: starting with an accident due to weather, which carries many reproaches for the weak preparation for the trip of the second-highest official in the republic. The interpretations then moved to internal liquidation, which is not excluded in a country like Iran that has experienced such incidents. However, according to Reuters reports, this possibility is weakened by the main possible reason for an attempt on his life being his succession to the Supreme Leader, a prospect not considered due to his exclusion from the list of potential successors by the Assembly of Experts six months ago, due to his sharply declining popularity, which raised concerns about the regime if he were to assume the position of the Supreme Leader. The third scenario, considered by many experts to be the most important, is an act carried out by some entity against the president, with fingers pointing at Israel, whose prime minister promised to kill all those involved in launching rockets at Israel, with the Iranian president being the foremost among them. If this is proven, it would be one of the worst illegal responses in the history of international conflicts, as it breaches and exceeds all international laws.


Of course, resolving all these options, or rather puzzles, can only be done by a specialized technical committee, which does not exist in Iran and will not be allowed to be summoned because, in short, it does not want to face the truth as it is, as this would require a response and revenge, and the cost of that would be significant in the three mentioned possibilities.

The first would mean the failure of official institutions to protect the president, the second would mean that Iran is internally divided to the extent of assassinating the president, and the third would prove that Iran is penetrated at the highest level, thus revealing the system’s weakness.

Therefore, Iran is left with only the weather conditions, and amidst this, it tries to assure the world of the smoothness of its political system and its ability to overcome hardships to prove the strength and efficiency of its institutions.

The funeral was an important occasion for this, highlighting Iran’s presence at the regional and international levels through the delegations that attended to offer condolences.

Similarly, Iran wanted to reassure its friends and foes that it is continuing its previous policy through continuity by handing over the responsibilities to the deputies of the absentees. Despite Raisi coming to power in elections characterized by low turnout and despite him leading with an iron fist the crackdown on Mahsa Amini’s spring when he applied the hijab law to the letter, and despite the decline of the Iranian economy, and despite him being an executor of the Supreme Leader’s policies and foreign policy being the exclusive domain of the Revolutionary Guard, he succeeded in making some breakthroughs in Iranian-Arab relations, aided by his astute Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian, who accompanied him on their last absence. Similarly, he succeeded in overcoming a crisis in Iranian-Pakistani relations after a mutual strike between them, and it is clear that he was heading to cool relations with Azerbaijan, and the last meeting with the Azerbaijani president was a significant turn in relations with this hostile neighbor. This raised the question of the continuity of attempts at openness, and therefore the appointment of the deputies of the absentees, although constitutional, gives the impression of the Supreme Leader’s and his circle’s desire to continue this policy, especially after containing the situation’s explosion with Israel. On the other hand, a meeting of the Quds Force commander with factions loyal to Iran in the region confirmed Iran’s continuation of the policy of proxies. All these data confirm that the era of a major shift in Iran’s policy has not yet arrived, and it seems that it will not happen under this Supreme Leader or perhaps this regime.

Therefore, building hopes on radical transformations that can change this dual behavior of Iran is far-fetched, and it seems that the region’s exhaustion between sweet talk on one hand and rivers of blood on the other remains the original constant, at least for now.