Why We Believe President Raisi Was Assassinated
WANA (Dec 15) – One of the most important core functions of intelligence and security services in today’s world—provided they are competent and professional—is the manipulation of political processes through:
1. Covert action
2. Covert operations
3. Deception operations
4. Psychological warfare
5. Cognitive warfare
6. Espionage
7. Infiltration
…and similar measures.
The ultimate objective of political manipulation is strategic penetration and control of political processes in line with the interests and desired outcomes of the manipulator. This often involves deceptive or unethical intelligence tactics aimed at shaping public opinion, influencing decision-making cycles, and ultimately altering macro-level and strategic trajectories—an arena that squarely falls within the mission and expertise of intelligence and security services. Political manipulation can take many forms, including covert methods, propaganda, disinformation, and more.
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Among the most significant tools of political manipulation is the elimination of key figures within a political system—whether through physical assassination, character assassination, or similar methods—in order to blind, cripple, distort, alter, or redirect that system’s political trajectory, or to replace an undesirable figure with one more favorable to colonial or hegemonic interests, or both.
This is precisely what the security services of the global hegemonic order—such as the CIA, MI6, Mossad, and others—have done repeatedly throughout history.
The assassination of President Raisi must be understood within this very framework: a case of political manipulation aimed at altering Iran’s macro-political trajectory and that of the Resistance Axis. By removing him, the broader political course of Iran and the Resistance Axis underwent an abrupt and fundamental shift.
Rescue team work following crash of a helicopter carrying Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan , East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 19, 2024. Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency/WANA (West Asia News Agency)
Viewed even through the lens of classical criminal investigation, a basic question arises: Who benefited most from the removal of Ayatollah Raisi?
The answer is crystal clear: The system of global hegemony and Israel—along with their affiliated domestic political forces.
The death of President Raisi generated immense benefits for many actors, both inside and outside Iran—benefits they were not willing to forgo easily.
Thus, the following elements were all in place:
1. The will to assassinate
2. The capability to assassinate
3. The tools and technology required
4. Consensus around the assassination
5. Prior experience in assassination
6. Iran’s intelligence, security, and protective vulnerabilities
Mourners attend the funeral for victims of the helicopter crash that killed Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others, in Tehran, Iran, May 22, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency)
Everything was ready.
So what obstacle stood in the way of the assassination?
The answer: Practically none. There was no real barrier.
The conditions for assassination were fully prepared; all that was needed was a pretext—one that a trip to a border region conveniently provided. Especially after the public exposure of the Baku regime’s role in the 12-day war and its close security cooperation with Tel Aviv, no doubt remains regarding the assassination of Raisi.
Virtually all the calamities that later befell the Resistance Axis were the direct consequence of Raisi’s assassination and the historic opportunity that emerged after October 7—an opportunity seized by Israel, the United States, and their affiliated domestic forces. This was a historic opening that Israel desperately needed to turn the tide in its favor. Within a matter of months, this opportunity transformed the Resistance Axis from holding the upper hand on the battlefield into mourning the martyrdom of Sayyed Hassan, Sayyed Hashem, Haniyeh, Pageri, and others—culminating in the fall of Syria and, in the final stage, an attack on Iran itself.
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The significance of Raisi’s assassination lay in the fact that it transformed Iran and the Resistance Axis from a cohesive, strategic fighting force into a fragmented, anxious entity consumed by internal crises.
Its political command-and-control system collapsed, and the resistance network descended into disorder and suffered severe damage—exactly what the enemy sought. Fully aware that Raisi’s assassination would produce such consequences, they carried it out. This was manipulation of the Resistance Axis’s grand strategic trajectory—the same tactic previously employed with the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, whose results they had already observed.
General McKenzie, in his memoir The Melting Point, writes about the assassination of Soleimani:
“Targeting Soleimani changed everything. The layers of proxy groups and plausible deniability were stripped away, leaving only two primary adversaries facing each other: Iran and the United States… With Soleimani’s death, we struck at the heart of Iran’s terror machine. The importance of the attack and its subsequent effects have become clearer over time… Iran’s response was essentially a punch that landed in the air and caused no fatalities. I do not minimize the injuries sustained by our forces at Ayn al-Asad, but the hard truth is that it could have been far worse. We had an opportunity to de-escalate, and the United States took it. Nothing else would have produced such a shift—the maximum pressure campaign would have continued and tensions would have risen again, but we had sidestepped a major war.”
