The death of sixty-four-year-old Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on May 19 comes at a crucial period when Iran had assumed de facto leadership of the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
However, as things stand, his absence from the scene is not likely to affect the direction of Iran’s security and foreign policy since institutional arrangements already exist by way of a Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which is Iran’s highest decision-making body on foreign policy and national security.
His absence from the scene is not likely to affect the direction of Iran’s security and foreign policy since institutional arrangements already exist by way of a Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
Also, Mohammad Mokhber, who was the first vice-president since 2021, has assumed charge as acting president till the next Presidential elections, now scheduled on June 28, 2024. This should have ordinarily taken place in 2025. Mokhber, a former governor of Khuzestan province is reportedly a confidante of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as he was in charge of the “ Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order” (EIKO), a major centre of economic power, which works directly under Ali Khamenei.
Raisi’s presidential term also saw a severe crackdown on the protesting public in 2022
What was Ebrahim Raisi’s personal contribution to Iran’s policies affecting internal security and external relations? Raisi had no foreign policy experience when he took over Presidentship after having spent his entire official career in Iran’s judicial service. He worked as a prosecutor and judge, finally holding the position as Chief Justice of Iran till he contested presidential elections in 2017 on behalf of the Conservatives. However, he was defeated by the incumbent “moderate” Hassan Rouhani. In 2021 he was elected with 63% votes leading to a charge by the moderates that the elections were “rigged”.
Raisi’s foreign policy objectives since 2021 were improving neighbourhood relations, expanding ties with Asian powers, China and Russia and trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with US
In 1988 he was part of what is known as the “Death Commission”, as Deputy Prosecutor General, which finally gave verdict on mass executions of political prisoners belonging to the “leftist” Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran or MeK, who had once supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Revolution. This had provoked Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, the declared “heir apparent” of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to criticise the executions for which he was denounced by the latter and subjected to house arrest.
Raisi’s presidential term also saw a severe crackdown on the protesting public in 2022. These were people originally agitating due to economic hardship and government’s austerity measures. The protests took a different turn on September 13, 2022, when Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman died in police custody. Mahsa with her brother had just arrived in Tehran to visit relatives, but she was held by the Gasht-e Ershad (Guidance Patrol), also called “morality police” for wearing “improper” clothing(Hijab). The police told her that she would be taken to a detention centre for a “corrective class” on mandatory public attire. At the detention centre Mahsa collapsed due to unknown reasons.
A case study of how Iran mended its relations with Saudi Arabia through Chinese mediation would indicate how the “Pragmatic Revolutionism” worked on the ground
The public, however alleged that she was beaten to death. This, in turn, led to mass protests which, according to historians, were the greatest eruptions since the 1979 Revolution. It certainly was more intense than the 2009 “Green Movement” of protests against president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Raisi’s foreign policy objectives since 2021 were improving neighbourhood relations, expanding ties with Asian powers, China and Russia and trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with US. A paper by the German Institute of Global Studies in November 2021 called it a “Pragmatic Revolutionism” by making “Iranian pivot to Asia” geopolitically and geoeconomically, which in other words, would be the ‘dawn” of a historical “second phase”, a post–Ali Khamenei era for a young revolutionary generation.
In detailed terms it meant “supporting the resistance axis against the United States and Israel and expelling US forces from the region”. Its pragmatism includes promoting “regional solutions to regional problems, de-escalation with traditional rivals (e.g. the Emiratis, Saudis, Taliban), and further strategic proximity to Asian actors such as China”.
In 2018 US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran nuclear deal which was endorsed by Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran - Saudi relations deteriorated with Houthi missile attacks on Saudi refineries in 2019
Observers say that he achieved all except on the nuclear front with America. A May 2024 US Institute of Peace paper says that Iran helped Russia press ahead with Ukraine War “by providing more than 1,000 Shahed series of suicide drones as well as artillery and tank rounds”.
A case study of how Iran mended its relations with Saudi Arabia through Chinese mediation would indicate how the “Pragmatic Revolutionism” worked on the ground. In January 2016 Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr along with 47 others for the revolt of the Shia majority in Saudi Eastern Province in 2011. In retaliation Iranian demonstrators ransacked Saudi missions in Tehran and Mashhad which finally led to the rupture of diplomatic relations. In 2016 Iran suspended participation in the Hajj but Riyadh retaliated by starting a Persian language TV channel to cover the prayers.
In 2021 China - Arab countries’ bilateral trade rose to US$330 billion of which China-Saudi-UAE trade amounted to US$200 billion
In 2018 US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran nuclear deal which was endorsed by Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran - Saudi relations deteriorated with Houthi missile attacks on Saudi refineries in 2019. In 2020 Saudi official media celebrated when Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed through a US drone strike in Baghdad.
However, things began to change gradually after Raisi was elected as President. In 2021 he offered talks with Saudi Arabia to settle mutual differences. Riyadh cautiously accepted the offer through Iraq’s mediation after initially rejecting it. By 2022 five rounds of secret talks were held. Later Oman became the intermediary. Still the talks did not move further.
Saudi Arabia was China’s top supplier of oil in 2022, while Iran, despite the US sanctions, remains the third largest exporter of oil to China, after Saudi Arabia and Russia
In December 2022 Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh when Saudi Arabia requested him to assume the role of a mediator. Xi accepted the role as it was in keeping with his proposal on 21 April 2022 defining a new “Global Security Initiative” that sought to provide an alternative version of global security by “bringing about security through political dialogue and peaceful negotiation.”
Xi conveyed Riyadh’s message to Tehran, which accepted the Chinese offer. In February 2023 Raisi visited China and conveyed Iran’s acceptance.
A George Town University paper gives reasons for China’s mediation: In 2021 China - Arab countries’ bilateral trade rose to US$330 billion of which China-Saudi-UAE trade amounted to US$200 billion. Saudi Arabia was China’s top supplier of oil in 2022, while Iran, despite the US sanctions, remains the third largest exporter of oil to China, after Saudi Arabia and Russia.