Day: June 18, 2024
Six Muslim prisoners in Russia seized a senior penal official and a guard on June 16 in the hopes of being released. At least three of the attackers had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms but were being kept in a preliminary detention center in Rostov.
After opening negotiations, the Russian authorities dispatched OMON special police units who freed the two captives and killed all six hostage takers. Russian media played up the religious affiliation of the prisoners, saying that they were linked to the Islamic State and promising an investigation. Russian officials then abruptly threw a blanket of silence over the events out of fear that they could further divide Russian society (Meduza;Rfi.fr, June 16; Kavkaz-uzel, June 17).
The prison clash is the latest in a series of developments that highlight growing domestic instability in Russia against the backdrop of President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine increasingly coming home to the Russian public (see EDM, December 21, 2023, January 19, 23, March 26, April 11, 16, 25).
Such an action by so small a group of prisoners and the entirely expected response of the Russian authorities may seem to render the clash a minor event. Nevertheless, even the limited amount of information available highlights far broader problems within the Russian criminal justice system, including radical overcrowding and a serious shortage of guards. The hostage situation points to a collapse in the traditional Russian method of managing prisoners by using ordinary criminals to control political ones. This system has increasingly broken down given the rise of Muslim inmates, on the one hand, and the increasing number of Ukrainian prisoners, on the other.
These problems are already having an impact on Russian society as a whole and will certainly influence political elites as Putin weakens and then passes from the scene. Sergey Starovoytov, a political analyst at the Club of the Regions portal, says that increasing numbers of Muslims in Russian prisons, the departure of many ethnic Russian criminals to fight in Ukraine, and the influx of ethnic Ukrainians into the Russian prison system mean that the alliance between jailors and ordinary Russian prisoners against minorities has broken down. Consequently, control over prisoners as a whole is now worse than it was since the 1990s and hearkens back to the revolts in the Gulag at the end of Stalin’s lifetime and especially in the wake of the Soviet dictator’s death (Rosbalt, June 17).
Revolts and other actions in Russian prisons and camps have become increasingly frequent and, at times, extremely large under Putin (see EDM, October 21, 2021; Window on Eurasia, December 28, 2023). Most have attracted little attention, however, as Moscow has stopped publishing most of the data on the penal system, making it more difficult to access information about what occurs behind prison walls (Tochno.st, October 13, 2023).
On the one hand, the current case is no exception, with regional officials taking down information about the kidnapping, claiming there are no serious problems (Nemoskva.net, June 16). On the other hand, hushing up the most recent clash appears to be backfiring. This has led some to suggest that the Kremlin orchestrated the kidnapping itself to fan ethnic feelings and gain support for further restricting information about and access to prisoners (Erkinuz.democrat, June 17). More independent journalists and human rights activists have even begun investigating the matter. Their findings suggest that Moscow’s problems with the penal system, already large, are only beginning to mount.
Conditions in Russia’s penal system have almost always been poor. The conditions, however, are now worse than they were a decade ago because Putin has cut spending on prisoners, closed camps and prisons, and created conditions in which actions by inmates against their guards are increasingly more likely (Window on Eurasia, June 11, 2023;Rostov.aif.ru, June 16). To save additional money, Putin has put more prisoners in almost all of the remaining prison institutions while reducing the number of guards to supervise them.
In Rostov, more than 900 prisoners reside in the preliminary detention center, which was designed for only 500, and 30-percent fewer guards are mandated for that facility (RIA Novosti; Rostov.aif.ru; Panram.ru, June 17). This means that those incarcerated are not separated according to whether they have been convicted, which allows convicts to recruit those still awaiting trial. Not surprisingly, experts suggest that these two factors are primarily responsible for unrest in the prison population rather than it being the work of any outside agitators (Mk.ru, June 10; Newizv.ru; 360.ru, June 17; Vse42.ru, June 18).
An even more important factor behind the rising challenges for Russian prison authorities is the changing composition of the prison population and what that means for relations between prisoners and guards. In the past, guards allied with those guilty of ordinary crimes and allowed them to rule over political prisoners. While that still happens, the balance is now shifting against the ordinary prisoners. Under Putin, the number of political prisoners has risen, including not only opposition figures but also more Muslims who may be guilty of nothing more than practicing their faith.
Additionally, in the past two years, more Ukrainians have been taken prisoner during Putin’s expanded war and confined in Russian penitentiaries. The numbers of these groups are especially large in Rostov, where Muslim prisoners represent at least 20 percent of those held and Ukrainians that many or even more (Istories.media, October 16, 2023; RIA Novosti, June 17). At the same time, coupled with fewer guards, many ordinary prisoners have volunteered to go to Ukraine, meaning that those who have not been viewed with increasing suspicion by the guards rather than as potential allies (Novaya Gazeta Europe, December 8, 2023).
All these trends point to more problems within the prison system, including corruption, as guards try to restore their own position by making deals. These developments are beginning to echo outside the prison walls as well. Almost all prisoners have families as well as co-ethnics and co-religionists concerned about them. As such, Moscow has played down any conflicts and launched campaigns against “politicizing” the breakdowns in the prison system (Nemoskva;Meduza, June 16). Many of these efforts have been ham-handed, however, including decisions not to release the bodies of those killed, an action that only leads to greater attention and greater anger (Meduza;;Ntv.ru, June 16;Iarex.ru, June 17). Those frustrations are now spreading to people who are not linked directly to prisoners but are worried about what prison uprisings may threaten in the future. Some, including Duma deputies, are even demanding that prison officials be fired—demands the Kremlin may find hard to contain (RBC, June 16).
As a result, Russia’s penal institutions, long the Moscow regime’s first line of defense against any challenge, are becoming less effective and instead adding to the problems the Kremlin already faces.
- This article was published at The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 21 Issue: 93
In regard of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s main challenge going forward is to find the equilibrium between strategic overestimation and underestimation. “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten,” as Bill Gates put it.;
A triumphalist tone is unmistakeable in President Vladimir Putin’s;speech on Friday;to a special gathering of senior foreign ministry officials in Moscow presenting the guardrails for negotiations with Ukraine. Russia is a country of high-context culture, which communicates in ways that are implicit and relies heavily on context.;
Putin underscored certain pre-conditions. Russia is ready to immediately cease hostilities if Ukraine begins withdrawing its military units beyond the administrative boundaries of Donbass, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. This is a curious replay of the precondition that Moscow fulfilled in March 2022 when following the talks in Istanbul, Ukraine expected a rollback of Russian deployments around Kiev.;
Once bitten, twice shy — Putin’s precondition implies that new territorial realities should be fixed by international treaties. Moscow is ready to negotiate only after Kiev formally notified NATO that it is abandoning the intent to seek membership. Russia expects a complete lifting of sanctions.;
Evidently, Russia’s peace terms are, partly at least, based on certain prerequisites that are, conceivably, impossible for Ukraine and its mentors to fulfil. So, presumably, a further hardening of the peace terms is to be expected if Russian troops make more gains on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Moscow is signalling to its Western adversaries the inevitability of a massive redrawing of the Russian-Ukrainian border as the basis for peace.;;
Unsurprisingly, the Western powers view Putin’s peace terms as an ultimatum although Russian diplomacy propagates them as an important peace initiative. It is timed carefully, just as the G7 summit at Borgo Egnazia in Italy ended and on the eve of the Western-sponsored;‘peace meet’ in Bürgenstock.;
The prognosis by the influential politician who has been a deputy speaker of the Duma since 2016 and the scion of an illustrious Russian family, Pyotr Tolstoy (great-great-grandson of Leo Tolstoy) is that Moscow will call out next only for the surrender of Ukrainian forces.;
The mood in Moscow has become belligerent, as the EU, at sustained prodding by Washington, is inexorably moving toward the confiscation of Russia’s frozen assets in western banks — ostensibly for meeting Ukraine’s needs but in reality to defray the huge expenses Washington is incurring for its proxy war.;
The;G7 summit’s communique;highlights that “In the presence of President Zelenskyy, we decided to make available approximately USD 50 billion leveraging the extraordinary revenues of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets, sending an unmistakable signal to President Putin. We are stepping up our collective efforts to disarm and defund Russia’s military industrial complex.”;
The G7 formulation is a white lie. What is unfolding is a financial scam of the century and the largest theft of money in history. A clutch of modern-day brigands is literally grabbing about $260 billion of Russia’s sovereign assets and giving it the colouring of a legal translation by attributing to it the process the status of a financial collateral for an American loan to Ukraine in blatant violation of international financial law that would ultimately line the pockets of the US military-industrial complex and the politicians.
Suffice to say, Washington is making its proxy war in Ukraine a self-financing, cost-accounting enterprise with Europeans as guarantors. Washington is inflicting a big blow to Russia’s national honour and pride. The big question is where does Russia go from here, given its ‘high-context culture’?;
One barely-noticed ellipsis in Putin’s speech on Friday was that he left his lengthy recap of Western betrayals hanging in the air without a foot note as to how Russia came to such a sorry pass at all historically.;
If the willing submission to the avalanche of national humiliations was merely due to Russia’s weakness, surely, that is a thing of the past. Today, Russia stands tall as the fourth largest global economy, a great military power and the sole power on the planet with the strategic capability to reduce the US to thermonuclear ashes. Yet, minions like NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg are threatening Russia that he’s heading a “nuclear alliance.”;
That is where the elucidation on Putin’s speech by the Dy Chairman of Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev — “on what he [Putin] carefully hinted at in his speech” — needs to be understood properly.;
Medvedev made four key points:;;
- The new territories that became part of Russia since 2022 will “remain so forever.”
- A “catastrophic scenario” is developing for the Kiev regime.
- The sanitary zone Russia will create on its western borders to prevent terrorist attacks may extend right upto Ukraine’s border with Poland, the staging post for NATO’s threats against Russia.
- “The President did not say this [western Ukraine’s fate] directly, but it is obvious that such territories, if desired by the people living there, can become part of Russia.”
Most certainly, it is not a coincidence that Putin landed in Pyongyang today morning — or that, Russia’s Pacific Fleet commenced a;large scale naval exercise;from today till 28the June;;in the Pacific Ocean, in seas of Japan and Okhotsk.;;
In the context of his state visit to North Korea, Putin;wrote;in an article for North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun, “We highly appreciate the DPRK’s unwavering support for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine… We will… jointly oppose illegitimate unilateral restrictions [read sanctions], and shape the architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia.”;
By the way, if North Korea, which is a nuclear power, figures in the;first circle of Russia’s strategic calculus;as an ally, can Iran which is a nuclear threshold country be far behind — and, importantly, what could be its alchemy? Indeed, Russia has warned that it will give asymmetrical response to the attack on its territory with western weapons allegedly aided by NATO personnel — something without precedent even at the high noon of the Cold War — and NATO secretary-general’s open, vociferous support for it.
In Strobe Talbott’s book;The Russia Hand;(2002), he narrates an aside with Bill Clinton during a US presidential visit to Moscow in 1995. Clinton told Talbott using a favourite metaphor that his instincts were that Russian elites were sulking and couldn’t take anymore the “shit” being shoved down their throat. Indeed, NATO’s eastward expansion was already on the drawing board in the White House by then.;
However, it took Russia another quarter century till February 2022 to resist US bullying. To be sure, Medvedev’s candid ‘annotation’ could not have been without approval from Putin.
The challenge for the next two years is that Russia might overestimate the willingness of the US and EU to concede its legitimate demand of equal and indivisible security.;
On the other hand, in a longer term perspective, Moscow should not underestimate the stubborn refusal by Europe’s declining powers — UK, France and Germany — to accept the rise of Russia as a compelling geopolitical reality that they must reconcile with.;;
Hungarian PM Viktor Orhan is spot on in estimating that it will be sheer naïveté to assume that the new EU leadership would moderate the policies towards Ukraine and Russia, despite the ascendancy of the right-wing parties in the recent elections to the European Parliament.
- This article was published at Indian Punchline
By Mark Thornton
With the world moving more and more in the direction of trade protectionism and war, it is worth remembering the origin of the fallacies upon which this movement is based.
Michel Montaigne, the sixteenth-century minor politician and writer, is credited with the illogical view that trade and exchange result in one person winning and the other losing. Today this view is called “zero-sum thinking.” The fallacy is the foundation of former President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies and President Joe Biden’s protectionist trade policies, as well as a whole host of irrational government policies, from “protecting jobs” to war.
Montaigne lived in the high times of King Louis XIV, the sinister economic French minister Jean Baptiste Colbert, and the heyday of mercantilism, a hodgepodge of protectionism, colonialism, slavery, and the rise of central state power. As a “philosopher,” Montaigne was a skeptic who did not believe in the power of human reason and logic, the possibility of truth, the goodness of nature, or the existence of any kind of God. Despite his “philosophy,” he did believe in the appearances of religion and the monopoly of the Catholic church, as well as the complete unrestricted power of the state.
Without access to human reason and without the hope of discovering the truth of the nature of man, how could one stand against anything in the existing order of things? Blind obedience was his rule. Apparently, the status quo was always perfect, and we could never know anything else.
Not surprisingly, he was also a thoroughgoing Machiavellian. While we can all see that lying and deceit are a normal and regrettable part of politics and government, Montaigne saw such vices in a positive light of “sewing our society together” and as “poisons for the preservation of our health.”
As such, he saw the day-to-day voluntary interactions of people as mortal and moral battles, and trading between nations were acts of warfare. His most famous writing, Essay Number 22, is provocatively titled, “The Plight of One Man Is the Benefit of Another.” Never mind that the earliest, most obvious, and most generalizable philosophical conclusion is the mutual advantages and benefits of exchange.
In Montaigne’s fallacy, the funeral director benefits at the expense of people who die, the farmer benefits from the hungry, physicians benefit from the sick, and clothiers benefits from the naked.
Montaigne and his fallacy take the great illogical leap over two facts: first, none of these businesspeople create problems such as hunger and death, and second, they actually help people address or solve these problems. It’s not a zero sum of winners and losers. Both parties, both sides of the exchanges and trades benefit, gain, profit, and are fulfilled from such trades.
Montaigne’s dog-eat-dog world is actually a world of widespread cooperation and mutual benefit.
The great Austrian-born economist Ludwig von Mises is often credited with labeling zero-sum thinking as the “Montaigne dogma or fallacy.” He;explains the fallacy;in “non-philosophical” terms everyone can easily grasp:
What produces a man’s profit in the course of affairs within an unhampered market society is not his fellow citizen’s plight and distress, but the fact that he alleviates or entirely removes what causes his fellow citizen’s feeling of uneasiness. What hurts the sick is the plague, not the physician who treats the disease. The doctor’s gain is not an outcome of the epidemics, but of the aid he gives to those affected. The ultimate source of profits is always the foresight of future conditions. Those who succeeded better than others in anticipating future events and in adjusting their activities to the future state of the market, reap profits because they are in a position to satisfy the most urgent needs of the public.
Because his logic is so convincing in terms of our own daily dealings, it is important to remember that Mises was more concerned about the Montaigne fallacy at the international level where illogical words can quickly mutate into wars.
Chastising Voltaire, Mises;wrote, “The statement that one man’s boon is the other man’s damage is valid with regard to robbery, war, and booty. The robber’s plunder is the damage of the despoiled victim. But war and commerce are two different things.”
The spirit of conquest applied to trade has been embraced by political leaders, and supporters have prevented a truly peaceful and prosperous world order. “It is monstrous that Emperor Napoleon III, should have written: ‘The quantity of merchandise which a country exports is always in direct proportion to the number of shells it can discharge upon its enemies whenever its honor and its dignity may require it.’” Arguments for protectionism of various sorts are often more alluring than when Mises provides the proper context. Indeed, deceit and obfuscation are easy to come by when the payoff for interest groups from such propaganda is so high. Insinuations to patriotism, good high-paying jobs, and double-crossing foreigners can be easy to shallow.
The solution begins with our own personal commitment to the liberal ideology of peace and an unfettered free market.
With both candidates for United States president firmly in the pocket of the Montaigne dogma, we need not delude ourselves as to the outcome, but rather we should steel ourselves to follow Mises’s advice to “disclose the sources of the popularity of this (fallacy) and other similar delusions and errors.”
- About the author: Mark Thornton is the Peterson-Luddy Chair in Austrian Economics and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute. He serves as the Book Review Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. His publications include The Economics of Prohibition (1991), Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War (2004), The Quotable Mises (2005), The Bastiat Collection (2007), An Essay on Economic Theory (2010), The Bastiat Reader (2014), and The Skyscraper Curse and How Austrian Economists Predicted Every Major Crisis of the Last Century(2018).
- Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute
By Andrew Feickert
What Is the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon?
The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), also known as Dark Eagle (Figure 1), with a reported range of 1,725 miles, consists of a ground-launched missile equipped with a hypersonic glide body and associated transport, support, and fire control equipment.
According to the Army, “This land-based, truck-launched system is armed with hypersonic missiles that can travel well over 3,800 miles per hour. They can reach the top of the Earth’s atmosphere and remain just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems until they are ready to strike, and by then it’s too late to react.”
The Army further notes, “The LRHW system provides the Army a strategic attack weapon system to defeat Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities, suppress adversary long-range fires, and engage other high payoff/time critical targets. The Army is working closely with the Navy in the development of the LRHW. LRHW is comprised of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), and the Navy 34.5-inch booster.”
LRHW Components
Missile
The missile component of the LRHW is reportedly being developed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. When the hypersonic glide body is attached, it is referred to as the Navy-Army All Up Round plus Canister (AUR+C). The missile component serves as the common two-stage;booster for the Army’s LRHW and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) system, which can be fired from both surface vessels and submarines.
Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB)
The C-HGB is reportedly based on the Alternate Re-Entry System developed by the Army and Sandia National Laboratories. Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos, is currently under contract to produce C-HGB prototypes for the Army and Navy. The C-HGB uses a booster rocket motor to accelerate to well above hypersonic speeds and then jettisons the expended rocket booster. The C-HGB, which can travel at Mach 5 or higher on its own, is planned to be maneuverable, potentially making it more difficult to detect and intercept.
LRHW Organization and Units
The LRHW is organized into batteries. According to the Army, “a LRHW battery consists of four Transporter Erector Launchers on modified M870A4 trailers, each equipped with two AUR+Cs (eight in total), one Battery Operations Center (BOC) for command and control, and a BOC support vehicle.”
The 5th;Battalion, 3rd;Field Artillery Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, was designated to operate the first battery of eight LRHW missiles. The battalion, also referred to as a Strategic Long-Range Fires battalion, is part;of the Army’s;1st;Multi Domain Task Force (MDTF), a unit in the Indo Pacific-oriented I Corps stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. Other LRHW batteries are planned for Strategic Long-Range Fires battalions in the remaining MDTFs scheduled for activation.
LRHW Testing and Program Activities
According to a 2023 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study, “U.S. Hypersonic Weapons and Alternatives,” “Extensive flight testing is necessary to shield hypersonic missiles’ sensitive electronics, to understand how various materials perform, and predict aerodynamics at sustained temperatures as high as 3,000° Fahrenheit.”
The Army originally planned for three flight tests of the LRHW before the first battery fielding in FY2023. On October 21, 2021, the booster rocket carrying the C-HGB vehicle reportedly failed a test flight, resulting in what defense officials characterized as a “no test” as the C-HGB had no chance to deploy. Reportedly, a June 2022 test of the entire LRHW missile also resulted in failure.
Flight Test Delays
In October 2022, it was reported the Department of Defense (DOD);delayed a scheduled LRHW test in order to “assess the root cause of the June [2022] failure.”;Reportedly, the delayed test would be rescheduled to the first quarter of FY2023.
March 2023 LRHW Test Scrubbed
On March 10, 2023, it was reported, “On March 5, DOD was preparing to execute Joint Flight Campaign-2 featuring the Army version of the prototype weapon launched at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL, when the countdown was halted…. As a result of pre-flight checks during that event, the test did not occur.”
Cancelled September 2023 LRHW Test and Program Delay
On September 6, 2023, it was reported, “The DOD planned to conduct a flight test at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, to inform hypersonic technology development. As a result of pre-flight checks, the test did not occur.”
On September 14, 2023, in an Army statement to Bloomberg News, the Army reportedly acknowledged it would not be able to meet its goal of deploying the LRHW by the end of FY2023.
Change in LRHW Testing Pathway
In late November 2023, Navy and Army acquisition executives reportedly decided to;“revamp efforts to prepare for [LRHW] flight test following three flight test attempts this year that were scrubbed because of problems with the Lockheed Martin-produced launcher.” The Army’s;new testing approach will feature subcomponent testing. It was also noted the new testing effort;was “definitely going to be;months, not weeks,”;and could possibly run into next summer.
LRHW Fielding Delayed Until FY2025
According to a June 2024 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress, “The Army missed its goal of fielding its first LRHW battery—including missiles—;by fiscal year 2023 due to integration challenges. Based on current test and missile production plans, the Army will not field its first complete LRHW battery until fiscal year 2025. Before the Army can field an operational system, it must conduct a successful end-to-end;missile flight test using the Army’s launch system.”
GAO further notes, “The LRHW integration issues discovered during testing also affect missile production. The Army cannot complete the missiles for the first battery until a successful test demonstrates that the current design works. LRHW officials stated that once a successful flight test is achieved, the first production missile will be delivered within approximately six weeks and the first battery of eight missiles will be delivered within approximately 11 months. If the Army discovers issues with missile performance in flight testing, missile deliveries and the fielding of the first operational LRHW system could be further delayed.”
Screenshot
Considerations for Congress
Possible oversight considerations for Congress could include:
LRHW Testing and Fielding Concerns
The Army’s November 2023 decision to revise its LRHW;testing methodology seemingly suggests past testing difficulties might have been more significant than previously believed.;GAO’s June 2024 report stated that;LRHW fielding would again be delayed;–;contingent on the Army successfully achieving a number performance goals and tests. Another potential concern is, according to GAO,;after a successful test flight “the first production missile will be delivered within approximately six weeks and the first battery of eight missiles will be delivered within approximately 11 months,” which;arguably could be considered;“aggressive” given past LRHW test;performances.;In consideration of the LRHW’s;developmental and testing history, policymakers could;decide to further examine the Army’s LRHW flight test;plans. One potential issue for examination could be theArmy’s rationale and technical justification for transitioning;the LRHW into production within six weeks of a successful test flight. Another concern could be what are the Army’s;contingency plans if the LRHW is unable to overcome;current “integration challenges.”
LRHW Missile Costs
According to a January 2023 Congressional Budget Office study, “U.S. Hypersonic Weapons and Alternatives,”;purchasing 300 Intermediate-Range Hypersonic Boost- Glide Missiles (similar to the LRHW) was estimated to cost $41 million per missile (in 2023 dollars). A January 2023 Center for Strategic and International Studies report, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese;Invasion of Taiwan,”;noted when discussing hypersonic weapons, contends;“their high costs limits inventories, so;they lack the volume needed to counter the immense numbers of Chinese air and naval platforms.”
Given concerns about how LRHW missile costs could influence LRHW inventories, policymakers might decide to further examine LRHW missile costs as well as quantities of LRHW missiles needed to support potential combat operations in various theaters of operations.
- About the author: Andrew Feickert, Specialist in Military Ground Forces
- Source: This article was published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
By Dr. Reza Parchizadeh
The sudden death of Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian regime’s president, in a suspicious helicopter crash will;disrupt;the constructed succession plan for the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This disruption will not necessarily;favor;Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, as many might assume, but will instead create opportunities for Khamenei’s adversaries, specifically the Reformists/Moderates and certain factions within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to influence or steer the succession process.
How Khamenei rose to power in Iran
Succession has occurred only once in the history of the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900–1989), the first Supreme Leader of Iran, did not settle the issue of his succession while still alive for several reasons. First, as the supreme spiritual leader, he deemed it beneath himself to engage in a matter that would appear as political;factionalism. Second, for a long time, nearly everyone;accepted;Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, a prominent cleric, as Khomeini’s;de facto;successor. Third, towards the end of his life, Khomeini suffered from rapidly worsening cancer, which likely cut short any last-minute plans.
A close-knit group of three — Ahmad Khomeini, the supreme leader’s son and confidant, Khamenei the president, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of parliament — took charge of managing the succession issue. They plotted to rule together in a power-sharing arrangement, with Khamenei at the helm as leader, Rafsanjani as president and Ahmad carrying the torch of his father’s legacy. However, the trio eventually fractured, and in a real-life cloak-and-dagger drama filled with hidden agendas and maneuvering, Khamenei outsmarted and eliminated his rivals, solidifying his position as the supreme and unchallenged leader.;
Raisi’s rise and fall reflects Khamenei’s strategic planning
Khamenei has long tried to prevent his progeny and legacy from suffering the same fate that befell his predecessor’s. To achieve this, he purged potential disruptors and handpicked loyalists years in advance to ensure a smooth succession.
Raisi’s rise from obscurity wasn’t about him becoming Supreme Leader. The establishment positioned him, not to succeed Khamenei specifically, but to guarantee the continuation of Khamenei’s ideology, regardless of the next leader. Charisma wasn’t Raisi’s strong suit; in fact, he was utterly bland. But what he lacked in personality, he made up for tenfold in devotion to the regime and Khamenei. Therefore, if Mojtaba were to be groomed for leadership, Raisi would serve as his facilitator, not his competitor.
The death of Raisi disrupted Khamenei’s plan. Speculation abounds as to who benefits from this, but those subjected to rounds of purges and consigned to the regime’s margins are the most likely candidates, namely the so-called Reformists/Moderates and the disaffected parts of the IRGC.;
In the first decade after the 1979 revolution, the future Reformists were among Ayatollah Khomeini’s closest allies. They even called themselves the “Line of the Imam” in his honor. However, Ali Khamenei and his faction sidelined them starting in 1989. Their influence further diminished after the;suspicious death;of Hashemi Rafsanjani in 2017. Out of power, they pragmatically adopted the label “Reformist” and began to rebuild relations with the West.
Decades of exile haven’t dimmed the ambitions of Iranian Reformists/Moderates. Based in Europe and North America, they haven’t given up hope. They dream of replacing Khamenei with Western backing and transforming the Islamist regime into a “moderate” version of itself. These figures remain active and any hiccups in Khamenei’s succession plan could be their golden opportunity.
Within the Revolutionary Guards exists a shadowy contingent I call the Shadow Guards. Not all Guards are Khamenei loyalists. Some commanders have even;challenged;his authority or shown disapproval. These dissenters, if not eliminated, now operate on the regime’s fringes. Khamenei further disrupts potential power grabs by rotating commanders. This creates an amorphous entity within the IRGC. Their loyalty isn’t necessarily to Khamenei, but to the regime’s core ideology. However, they see an opportunity to gain power when the leadership changes, and have;reportedly;begun making connections with former adversaries overseas.
The Reformists/Moderates and the Shadow Guards are finding common ground as the Iranian regime weakens. Both sides aim to preserve Iran as an authoritarian oligarchy, albeit through different tactics. The Reformists/Moderates cloak themselves in a liberal/leftist mask, while the Shadow Guards;embrace;ultranationalism. They both wield extensive media influence and strong;lobbying power;in the West. Their strategy is to co-opt elements of the monarchist opposition and;establish;a new elite to secure their control.
Iran’s authoritarian grip endures
Post-Khamenei Iran will see Islam remain the foundation of the regime, with nationalism acting as a façade masking its Islamist core. Already, some monarchists advocate for Iran to revert from Alavid Shiism with revolutionary clerical rule to Safavid Shiism, where a Shah presides over a Shiite establishment. This regime will continue to exclude most people and parties from political participation. Followers of minority religions can expect continued poor treatment, if not outright persecution. The regime’s foreign policy and relationships with its neighbors and the West will remain a mystery in a box.
The democratic world must be on high alert. To derail Khamenei’s criminal plans is undeniably attractive, but we cannot lose sight of the regime’s systemic corruption. Simply removing the top leadership won’t halt the tide of radicalism overflowing from Iran. It’s a trap — just like replacing communists with nationalist remnants of the Soviet regime didn’t;solve;its problems. Only a;transition;to a liberal democracy can normalize Iran and prevent future threats to its own people, its neighbors, and the global community.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
- About the author: Dr. Reza Parchizadeh is a political theorist, security analyst and cultural expert. He holds a BA and an MA in English from University of Tehran and a PhD in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is focused on Security Studies, Foreign Policy and International Relations. Parchizadeh currently serves on the editorial board of the international news agency Al-Arabiya Farsi.
- Source: This article was published by Fair Observer