(OPINION) Did we just witness a moment that will permanently alter history? As I write this article, the entire world is waiting for confirmation that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is either dead or alive.
If it turns out that he is dead, that will be really bad news, because that could push the Middle East to the brink of all-out war. No matter what actually happened, there is no way that you are going to be able to convince Iranian leaders that the U.S. and Israel were not responsible for bringing that helicopter down.
So let us hope that Raisi survives, because if he doesn’t the Iranians will be overwhelmed with emotion and will begin planning how to avenge the death of their president.
Ultimately, this could have just been a tragic accident. Flying a very old helicopter while there is “heavy fog” in a very remote area surrounded by high mountains is never a good idea, and shortly after the helicopter went down it was being reported that “information coming from the crash site is very concerning”…
The lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister were feared to be in jeopardy after their helicopter crashed Sunday in heavy fog in a mountainous area following a visit to the country’s northwest border, prompting a massive search and rescue effort.
“We are still hopeful, but information coming from the crash site is very concerning,” an official who spoke anonymously told Reuters.
Three helicopters were traveling in a convoy, and several of Iran’s highest-ranking officials were inside one of them…
The helicopter was one of a convoy of three, and foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Friday prayer Imam Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Al-Hashem, and other high-ranking officials were also reportedly on board with the president.
Once Raisi’s helicopter went down, the other two helicopters should have known exactly where it happened.
We are being told that the helicopter Raisi was on should have been able to send out a signal unless it had been completely destroyed.
“Helicopters used for high-ranking officials can send out their exact location in case of a crash, unless an explosion has disabled all onboard systems, including the emergency system,” Iranian defense and security analyst Farzin Nadimi told @IranIntl.
“It’s possible that a bomb exploded inside, or due to pilot error and insufficient visibility, the helicopter might have collided with a rock or the top of a hill, resulting in its sudden destruction.”
Something is not adding up here because for hours after the crash, it was reported that rescuers were having difficulty locating the crash site…
Details about the incident remained unclear, although reports indicated that the president’s helicopter suffered a “hard landing” in foggy weather. As night fell, the search became even more difficult. According to the Iranian IRNA news agency, the helicopter crashed in a forest area between the villages of Pir Davood and Uzi in northwestern Iran.
IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency said emergency services were conducting searches to find the helicopter, but the weather and 70-meter-tall boulders in the area were complicating the search efforts. Over 40 rescue teams were operating in the area.
To me, it seems like the Iranians are trying to keep a lid on this thing. I don’t think that they are ready to tell the world what really happened.
It is a very bad sign that IRGC forces have been positioned around a number of government buildings in Tehran… A Significant Deployment of Iranian Security and Military Personnel has been noted across the Capital of Tehran, with Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed to be taking up Positions near several Government Buildings.
If Raisi was perfectly fine, this would not be happening.
On Twitter, Israel News Pulse is claiming that there has been confirmation that Raisi is dead…
Confirmation: Ali Reza Dawari, head of the communications department in Ahmadinejad’s presidency, confirms the deaths of the President of Iran and his Foreign Minister, Abdollahian, in the president’s helicopter crash in the mountains of East Azerbaijan Province.
I haven’t been able to find confirmation of this anywhere else. So for now, I am still assuming that his fate is unknown. But I will admit that it doesn’t look good for Raisi at this point.
Arnaud Bertrand is pointing out that if Raisi is dead this could be “an archduke Ferdinand of the Middle East scenario”…
If Raisi is confirmed dead and foul play was found to be involved (a strong possibility given the geopolitical context), this has the potential to turn into an archduke Ferdinand of the Middle East scenario, especially given Raisi was rumored to be Khameini’s successor.
For those that aren’t familiar with history, many historians regard the death of Archduke Ferdinand as the spark that started World War I. (READ MORE)
