How Biden's Policy Failures Help Iran

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in a remote northeastern province of Iran. The area was so desolate that it took nearly 24 hours for rescue crews from Iran, Russia, and the European Union to reach the crash site.

While some media outlets like Reuters have described Raisi as simply a “hardline prosecutor”, the truth is that Raisi facilitated widespread crimes against humanity for decades. Known as the “Butcher of Tehran”, Raisi oversaw a wave of internal executions in 1988 as well as a bloody crackdown during the Mahsa Amini protests in 2022. Further proof of this is the widespread celebrations in parts of Iran when news of Raisi’s death reached the masses.

In the macro sense, Raisi’s death changes little for Iran. It increases the likelihood that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son will take over when his 85-year-old father steps down but changes little else. It also confirms just how closely we suspected the Iranians and the Russians work together.

When British Prime Minister Harold Macmillian was asked by a reporter what could blow the government off course, he gave one of my favorite quotes, “events dear boy, events.” Events change things and the Biden administration’s lack of a tangible plan in the Middle East has paved the way for destabilizing events like this to potentially wreak havoc in the region. As an isolated country known for its paranoia, Iran will likely convince itself that Israel and Azerbaijan worked together to secretly kill its sitting president.

Biden, who lobbied to remove the Iranian-backed Houthis from the terror watch list and freed up embargoed Iranian oil, has consistently been soft on Iran while contradictory to our only ally in the region. Biden’s conflicting signals in the region allow a paranoid Iran to set the narrative and respond accordingly. Watch: