But when it’s the Iranian President and Foreign Minister who are killed in one, speculation is inevitable.
Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi — once seen as a potential successor to 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — died after his helicopter crashed into trees in a mountainous northwestern region of the Islamic Republic on Sunday.
The Iranian branch of the Red Crescent humanitarian network said on Monday its search and rescue teams had reached the crash site and “found no signs of the helicopter’s occupants being alive.”
The discovery of the burned-out wreckage of Raisi’s helicopter among blackened trees — with seemingly only the tail surviving the crash — followed hours of searches in the fog-bound mountain valleys of Dizmar forest near the border with Azerbaijan.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was also on board and is presumed dead, along with the head of the presidential guard Mehdi Mousavi, East Azerbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati, Representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader in East Azerbaijan Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem and the helicopter’s pilot, co-pilot and crew. (1)
Whatever the inevitable public speculation and conspiracist narratives turn out to be, it’s worth remembering that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying for two decades to get the US to go to war with Iran.
As the presentations from Trita Parsi and John Mearsheimer describe, Iran and the US both want to avoid escalation to a direct war at this time. And though Iran is assisting proxy forces like Hezbollah’s in taking military action against Israel, it played ball with the US on its response to Israel’s attack on Israel’s diplomatic facilities in Syria. Parsi (2):
It’s also important that Benjamin Netanyahu clearly prefers Donald Trump as President, though Joe Biden has been at least very close to unconditional in his support of Israel’s Gaza war. Trump even called publicly for Israel’s help in his Presidential campaign, “Are you listening, Israel? I hope you're listening, Israel. Hope you're getting smart." (3)
For his part, Netanyahu’s office put out this news back in March:
Israel needs to start getting used to the number 10. That’s the number of years Israel will probably stay in the Gaza Strip, according to the current thinking emanating from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.Israel’s actions since then seem entirely consistent with such a timeline. Which pretty much precludes Israel reversing course on its current, massively destructive actions in Gaza on any timeline likely to benefit Biden’s reelection prospects.
The estimates are that it will take one or two years for the first stage of the war — eradicating Hamas — to be complete, and another eight years for an alternate government to stabilize, if it does at all.
During this period, Israel will have to maintain a continued presence in Gaza. Hamas will no longer be in control, Israel assesses and hopes, but there will always be terrorists in Gaza and the country will have to keep fighting them. (4)
A senior fellow at the neocon Foundation for Defense of Democracies was quick to point the finger at President Raisi death at the most powerful leader in Iran theocratic government, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:
Raisi’s death will heighten the belief among many Iranians and Iran-watchers that Khamenei’s own son, Mojtaba, will move to be frontrunner in the race to succeed his father.Parsi, whose analysis on Iran is infinitely more credible than anything coming out of the FDD, agrees with the basic analysis that Mearsheimer makes in the presentation below. Which is that Israel’s basic deterrence strategy for decades has been to have the ability to respond to any attackers by bringing to bear quick and decisive military force against them. Iran’s retaliation against Israel for the Syrian consulate attack was very closely coordinated with the US, which was responsible for at least half of the interceptions of Iranian missiles which minimized the damage to Israel.
“Raisi represents a younger version of Iran’s revolutionary elite — much less competent, but much more zealous,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at Washington’s Foundation for Defense of Democracies [FDD], which has called for tighter sanctions on Tehran. “These are the kind of people that Khamenei wants at the helm — Raisi’s death narrows down the selection process for his successor, and Khamenei’s own son is one potential candidate.” (4)
But it also demonstrated that Iran now has the capability of striking Israel directly from Iranian territory with drones and missiles and that Israel can no longer count on the kind of deterrence ability heavily tilted toward Israel’s advantage that it has in the past. As Mearsheimer notes, even the Houthis were able to make direct strike on Israel just recently for the first time. In Parsi’s view, this means that time is on Iran’s side, “and as a result, [Iran] should not walk into the trap that the Israelis are putting for them by trying to have a confrontation sooner rather than later.”
From Netanyahu’s viewpoint, having the conflict sooner rather than later would benefit his strategic calculation. And, in any case, he’s been pushing for a war that would drag the US into direct conflict with Iran for a long time. With Israel’s conventional deterrence ability already reduced because of the recent military developments, it is likely to continue to deteriorate in relative terms unless there is some game-changing event like expanding the current conflict to include direct conflict between the US and Iran.
As Mearsheimer stresses, at this point neither Iran nor the Biden Administration sees it in their interests to have a war with each other. So from Netanyahu’s point of view, prolonging the current conflict in such a way that damages Biden’s reelection prospects and puts Trump back in the White House looks attractive for that reason. Even though Trump reportedly turned down an effort by Netanyahu when he was still President to strike directly at Iran, he did cancel the nuclear deal with Iran and also took the very reckless gamble of the high-profile assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani by means of a missile fired into Iraq. (5)
Mearsheimer’s presentation is below. (6) I always like to remind people hearing on reading one of Mearsheimer’s analyses, if something about it doesn’t irritate you, you’re probably not listening very carefully. He’s not inclined to pull his scholarly-but-disturbing punches:
Whatever the rumors or the actual news about the recent fatal helicopter crash may be, those are the general outlines of the current situation between Israel, Iran, and the US.
Notes:
(1) Gavin, Gabriel & Oliver, Christian (2024): Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi dies in helicopter crash. Politico EU 05/20/2024. <https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-president-ebrahim-raisi-dies-helicopter-crash-hossein-amir-abdollahian-azerbaijan/> (Accessed: 2024-15-05).
(2) Iran, Israel and US power: MEMO in Conversation with Trita Parsi. MEMO YouTube channel 04/24/2024. <https://youtu.be/a11OP51Jbvg?si=EUpnsBj-auwb1TBh> (Accessed: 2024-15-05).
(3) 'We'll Immediately Deport You' | Trump Ramps Up Campus Protests Over Israel-Palestine as Key Campaign Issue Against Biden. Haaretz 05/13/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2024-05-13/ty-article/.premium/trump-ramps-up-campus-protests-over-israel-as-a-key-campaign-issue-against-biden/0000018f-71b4-d7ad-abdf-f5befa1a0000> (Accessed: 2024-15-05).
(4) Yerushalmi, Shalom (2024): Netanyahu plans for Israel to stay in Gaza for 10 years. Times of Israel 03/06/2024. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-plans-for-israel-to-stay-in-gaza-for-10-years/> (Accessed: 2024-15-05).
(5) Qasem Soleimani: US strike on Iran general was unlawful, UN expert says. BBC News 07/09/2020. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53345885> (Accessed: 2024-15-05).
(6) Why Israel is in deep trouble: Prof. John Mearsheimer with Tom Switzer. Judge Napolitano-Judging Freedom YouTube channel 05/18/2024. <https://youtu.be/7PGfYMBFoP8?si=Dg_Vl2zKKatszDlD> (Accessed: 2024-15-05).
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