The Options for Ayatollah’s Successor Abruptly Narrow

Make no mistake, Iran is really run by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It’s not that the office of the president in the Iranian theocracy is powerless, but the buck stops with the ayatollah.

With that said, Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi was seen as a potential contender to be Ayatollah someday. His ambitions ended in a helicopter crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province this weekend: