Security expert: Iran’s Aging-Mullah Crisis
The recent death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a veteran Iranian politician, underscores the fact that “the Islamic Republic is rapidly aging,” notes Michael Rubin at Commentary. He was the first major Iranian figure to die since Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, but “there likely will not be another 18-year interlude before the next state funeral.” Iran’s top figures are all in their 70s, and the death of any one “could unleash a spark that brings down the Islamic Republic.” Because “it only takes one mistake, just one protest spinning out of control . . . for the domestically unpopular regime to come crashing down.”