The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, 63, in a helicopter crash happened at a low point in U.S.-Iranian relations, leaving a power vacuum to be filled in snap elections in less than 50 days.
The theocratic regime’s legitimacy at home is also under severe stress. The short presidency of Raisi, who was called the “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in the mass executions of political prisoners in the 1980s, may be most remembered for the violent crackdown on popular protests following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
In this episode of History As It Happens, historians Gregory Brew of Eurasia Group and John Ghazvinian of the University of Pennsylvania discuss Raisi’s legacy and how his death may influence the regime’s stance on nuclear weapons development.
“There are a number of factors that are converging to make Iran begin to question its nuclear posture,” said Mr. Ghazvinian. “Iran over the years has slowly enriched more uranium and developed a stockpile, without necessarily intending to build a bomb, but the dynamics of the nuclear dispute have been such that Iran has ended up being a nuclear-capable state. … What that’s meant is that there is an increasingly compelling argument among some hardliners who say, you know what? We’re on the verge of a bomb anyway so why not just go for it?”
Raisi’s death may shift Iranian politics even further in favor of the pro-bomb militarists, Mr. Ghazvinian said. Mr. Brew added that the recent military confrontation between Israel and Iran may also add urgency to the latter’s potential development of a nuclear weapon.
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“For years and decades, there’s been an attitude toward the nuclear program that it is beneficial to Iran’s deterrent strategy, that it benefits Iran’s security to develop a nuclear hedge rather than going for a bomb itself. What we’re seeing in the shift in discourse [in Iran] is a slight increase in openness to the idea of building a bomb,” on the part of arch-hardliners,” Mr. Brew said.
The two historians also discuss Raisi’s political career and the future of Iran’s revolutionary leadership 45 years after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
