Iran's regime just lost a safe pair of hands. Yes, another hardliner is sure to replace Ebrahim Raisi – known to detractors as the butcher of Tehran for the thousands of dissidents he sent to the gallows as a state prosecutor. But the president's sudden death in a helicopter crash may still change the equation – not so much for a presidential election slated by the constitution to be held in 50 days' time, but in the behind-the-scenes jockeying to pick a successor to Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader who is 85 years old and frail. Raisi – himself a cleric – had been tipped as a possible replacement.
We ask about the crash and the challenges ahead for Iran.
