Helicopter death: Two of Iran’s most influential leaders were killed yesterday in a helicopter crash near the country’s border with Azerbaijan. President Ebrahim Raisi – widely regarded as number two and (until yesterday) the likely successor to the ailing 85-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei — has died, as has Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian. State media blamed their deaths on a “technical failure” in the helicopter flying over the mountainous area.
Lacey, known as the “Butcher of Tehran,” was responsible for some of the Iranian regime’s most brutal crackdowns on its critics. Under his leadership, Mahsa Amini’s protests for women’s rights, including an end to mandatory hijab, were suppressed. He also played a key role in suppressing demonstrations in 2021-2022 over water shortages and poor economic conditions, as well as protests over fuel prices in November 2019 that killed around 500 people. (While Lacey only became president in 2021, he has been in charge of the Justice Department since 2019, so some of these things fell under his purview before he gained greater power.) Earlier in his career, Lacey was Member of a small group that decided to execute 5,000 dissidents during the Iran-Iraq War. Dissidents were not tried.
New York Times Describing him as “the driving force behind the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ growing power in Iranian politics and economy”. He has also helped strengthen Tehran’s ties with Russia and China and emboldened Iran’s proxies elsewhere in the Middle East.
Bad timing: The timing of both deaths was less than ideal, to say the least. After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Israel began to launch a follow-up offensive in Gaza. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah opened fire on Israel from the north. The Iranian-backed Houthi armed forces in Yemen began to attack container ships in the area. Tensions in the region increased. .
Iran responded with overt attacks on Israel last month when it attacked the Iranian embassy building in Syria, killing several military commanders, causing little damage but sending a clear message. “Iran’s intention was not to provoke war, but simply to demonstrate its willingness to attack Israel,” Foreign affairs reported at the time.
Internally, the current domestic political situation is tense. There remains widespread anger over the way the Mahsa protests have been suppressed and calls for an end to clerical rule. Regime-ordered attacks on dissidents abroad have also increased.
It remains to be seen whether and how the deaths of the two men will destabilize Iran and how it will affect the ayatollah’s conduct domestically and internationally.
New York scene:
my favorite movie of all time good guyAMC Networks reportedly issued a trigger warning for it new york post.
“This film contains language and/or cultural stereotypes that are inconsistent with today’s standards of inclusion and tolerance and may be offensive to some viewers,” the message now appears on the screen.
Ah, yes: in a movie about mob violence, bodies are found hanging in meat lockers, limp and lifeless, a revolting Italian stereotype.
Quick click
- “In a country where the federal government is supposed to be in gridlock, the past four years are hard to explain,” wrote New York Times“David Leonhardt. “These years have been arguably the most productive period of bipartisanship in Washington in decades.” Leonhardt attributes this to a new consensus he calls “new populism.”
- The two priests “are stationed at the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima parish in Shumilina, northern Belarus, [are] For much of the past three years, Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko has been suppressing Catholics (and gradually moving closer to Russia, aiding it in the war in Ukraine).
- “I think we’re overestimating the risks to American democracy,” Tyler Cowen said. All-rounder. “The intellectual class is too pessimistic. They are not used to roughness and chaos, but that’s been the case for most of this country’s history. It’s right to think it’s unpleasant. But through polarization and yelling at each other, we actually resolve solve the problem and finally move forward in the right way.
- Well, Taylor’s double helping: Could a $70,000 baby bonus help solve South Korea’s fertility crisis?
- Yes:
Why does Austin continue to struggle so damn hard on housing while every other city known for its progressive politics is a horrific unbearable nightmare of homelessness that was frozen in amber in the mid-1980s https: //t.co/x8lFaJB162
— Swann Marcus (@SwannMarcus89) May 17, 2024
