Iranian president’s death complicates a “Supreme” problem

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with the families of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran, Iran May 19, 2024.
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA

While Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s death may not have much immediate impact on Iran’s foreign policy – Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei runs that business himself – it could shake things up for a more fundamental question: Who’s going to run the place after the 85-year-old Khamenei dies?

Some background: The Supreme Leader is chosen by an opaque council of high-ranking clerics. While the president, elected in a heavily managed popular vote, doesn’t have direct say, the presidency is still a powerful and public platform.

Raisi, an arch-conservative ally of Khamenei’s, was installed to sideline reformist figures who, in recent years, have gained popularity as the Iranian revolution struggles to find new sources of legitimacy after 45 years in power. Raisi himself was even considered a possible successor to the Big Man.

“With Raisi gone, the hardliners lose one of their key assets,” says Eurasia Group’s top Iran analyst, Gregory Brew. “That creates more uncertainty about the regime’s ability to smoothly manage the transition amid broad public discontent, an anemic economy, and a burgeoning regional crisis.”


The first signs of how Khamenei plans to deal with this will come soon – a new presidential election must be rigg-, er, held within 50 days.

More from GZERO Media

Listen: In seven short weeks, the Trump administration has completely reshaped US foreign policy and upended trade alliances. Will China benefit from US retrenchment and increasing global uncertainty, or will its struggling economy hold it back? On the GZERO World Podcast, Bill Bishop, a China analyst and author of the Sinocism newsletter, joins Ian Bremmer for a wide-ranging conversation about China—its domestic priorities, global administration, and whether America’s retreat from global commitments is opening new doors for Beijing.

German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz speaks to the media after he reached an agreement with the Greens on a massive increase in state borrowing just days ahead of a parliamentary vote next week, in Berlin, Germany, on March 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

Germany’s election-winning center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, led by Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats have reached a preliminary agreement with the Green Party on a deal to exclude defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt break and establish a dedicated $545 billion fund for infrastructure investments.

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian leader has conditions of his own for any ceasefire with Ukraine, and he also wants a meeting with Donald Trump.

Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The court battle over whether the US can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Palestinian-Algerian activist detained in New York last Saturday, began this week in Manhattan. Khalil, an outspoken activist for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was arrested Saturday at his apartment in a university-owned building at Columbia University by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and he is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus.
(Photo by Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto)

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus on Thursday in the latest Israeli incursion into post-Assad Syria.

Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

Germany’s government is in a state of uncertainty as the outgoing government races to push through a huge, and highly controversial, new spending package before its term ends early this spring.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Republican, speaks as the U.S. vice president visits East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 3, 2025.
Rebecca Droke/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin redefined the agency’s mission, stating that its focus is to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”