Conflicted Community: Who Killed the Iranian President?
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Hello, dear listeners, dearest listeners. Thomas Small here with another episode for our conflicted community. Eamon Dean is here with me as well. Hey, Eamon. I'm always here with you, Thomas, just like Obi-Wan Kenobi was with Luke Skywalker. Well, I was going to say, it's like what Jesus Christ says in the Gospels, I will be with you always and to the end of the age. Eamon, you are my personal savior. Ha, ha, ha.

Indeed. Bless you, my child. Indeed. He just takes it. He doesn't even... No even mock humility from Eamon Dean. He has a God complex, dearest listeners. He has a God complex. Eamon, you might have a God complex, but you also have an alter ego as a stand-up comedian. And judging by...

Judging by all the tweets that you've been putting out in the past few days, you seem to be in a pretty good mood. We will discuss why you are in a good mood a bit later. But, man, you've become the king of bad jokes. I'm sorry, I mean dad jokes. And here are a couple of the most, well, dearest listener, the most truly bizarre. So here's one that you tweeted. Dad joke of the day. Irritating.

Iran's President Ibrahim Raisi decided to quit his job, citing "job burnout." Ba-dum-ching! I mean, Ayman, come on. It did, okay, I have to admit, that one... Well, he did burn out. He sure did. He burned right up, actually. I mean, that one did make me crack a smile, I have to confess. But this next one, Ayman, honestly, what the hell does it even mean? You tweeted, "Another dad joke. Question:

Why did the helicopter fall from the sky? Answer. President Raisi felt cold, so he switched off the rotor blades. What the hell does that mean? Well, he felt cold because basically the rotor blades were making him cold because the wind, you know, so he switched it off. Oh, I see. He felt cold. Okay. So, I mean, I guess, yeah, obviously it's on me. That joke is, in fact, very funny, Eamon. That's just my brainlessness. People

Before we move on to the episode in earnest, Eamon, you got any other bad jokes? I mean, dad jokes for us? Well, not so much, you know, a bad joke, but it's basically, I would say, it's the joke on Raisi. Do you know when he used to be young, you know, in his 20s, he was a member of a judicial committee. During the Iran-Iraq war, his favorite hobby was to take Iraqi prisoners of war and throw them from helicopters. Oh, my God. That's...

That is not, that's not a joke at all. My God. Not a joke, but the joke is on him that how he died. Oh, I see, man. I am slow on the uptake. No, that is hilarious. Actually, you know, who had the last laugh?

Exactly. Your model, Eamon. Well, today, dearest listener, if you haven't already guessed, we are going to be looking at the death of Iranian President, late Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi. We'll be giving you a quick rundown of his brutal past, how he received the title Butcher of Tehran, as well as what his death means for Iran's internal and international politics. Let's jump right in.

So, dearest listeners, for anyone who missed the news, on Sunday, May 19th, after attending the inauguration of a new dam on the Azerbaijani border, President Raisi's helicopter went down in foggy weather in the mountains in northwestern Iran near the city of Jolfa.

Have you ever visited Jolfa, Eamon? No, unfortunately not. But one day, now that it is the place of a fortunate accident.

What was it, an accident? We will discuss this later. But in researching this episode, I looked a little bit into Jolfa, Eamon, and I found that on the outskirts of Jolfa, about 15 kilometers outside of town, there is an absolutely ravishing monastery, an Armenian monastery, St. Stephen's Monastery, built in the 9th century, if I remember correctly.

And my God, you must Google it, Eamon, and look at the pictures of the main church of the monastery. It's a beautiful synthesis of Caucasian, you know, Caucasus-Caucasian, Byzantine, and Islamic designs in a beautiful synthesis. Wow. And really, looking at it, you think, what an icon of a happier possibility for the peoples of the region. Let us pray, O Lord. Yeah.

Indeed. That the region can return. Let us pray, O Lord, that the peoples can return to creating beautiful syntheses of culture and not blood-curdling chaos. Indeed. Okay, back to the helicopter crash.

There has been some speculation about foul play from potentially both inside and outside Iran. But before we get into all that, Eamon, you're champing at the bit there. You've got your theories. But before I let you loose on the listener, let's have a look at who President Raisi was, at his career, and at how he got to the top of Iranian politics.

politics. You know, Eamon, as you know, in the West, there's been some controversy as various states and intergovernmental institutions have, for example, flown their flags at half mast for the president.

while other voices are describing him as ultra-conservative and even the butcher of Tehran. What do you think of when you hear Raisi's name? Yes, goodness. I mean, I was following Raisi's career with interest,

Ever since 2009. This is the time of the sort of protests against the elections of that year. Yes, against the elections of Ahmadinejad, or as my Farsi-speaking followers love to call him, Ahmadinejad. What does that mean? Idiot, Najab. I see. Very subtle then. Indeed. Indeed.

So during that time, in 2009, there was this ceremony where, you know, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, was with Ibrahim Raisi. We can see him now, you know, coming into prominence there on national TV when they were doing the, you know, the once-in-a-lifetime excavation and cleaning of the

grave and the shrine of the eighth Imam, the Imam Riza, which around his shrine is sitting the largest

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