Was it an assassination or an accident?

Was the helicopter crash that killed Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi an assassination or an accident?

Considering current events, people will be tempted to call it an assassination and that certainly can’t be ruled out. But Israel has previously targeted imminent threats, IRGC terror operatives and scientists working on weapons research. Hitting top political figures appears unlikely. And politically inconvenient.

Raisi headed a faction that was more aggressive, but also less prone to playing diplomatic games with D.C. If the Iranian government undergoes a change, it may produce a leadership that will at least pretend to negotiate with the Biden administration while building up its nuclear weapons program. And I doubt Israel prefers that.

The CIA and the Biden administration? They couldn’t figure out how to change a lightbulb let alone have the guts and the know-how to pull something like this off.

If it’s an assassination, the likeliest suspects would be within Iran’s own political snakepit where the stakes are high and the players are ruthless. Raisi was potentially in line to become the Supreme Leader and he’d been playing hardball with members of another faction. It’s not impossible that it escalated, but also out of character. Iran’s political players usually denounce and destroy each other using the system.

The last year has been unprecedented, but Occam’s Razor still holds.

If you’re flying in a chopper that predates the Iranian revolution (and whose only parts can be obtained on the black market or from Chinese ripoff artists) into heavy fog along mountainous terrain, the likeliest explanation for a crash is not an international conspiracy.

Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield