A Franz Ferdinand moment?

OPINION:

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Mark Twain once observed that history does not repeat, but it does rhyme. Those words have never been truer than at the present moment, as the world holds its collective breath in dreadful anticipation for what may next happen in the ongoing Mideast crisis that has plagued world affairs since the brutal Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 of last year. After months of shadowboxing between Israel and Iran, fears abound that an actual war is about to erupt.

Some are even saying that the recent death of the hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash is the equivalent of a “Franz Ferdinand Moment” for a world that has seemed to teeter on the brink of a third world war. 

In the last few months, since the horrific October 7 attacks conducted by Hamas (an Iranian-backed organization committed to the destruction of Israel), Israel has attacked an Iranian consulate in neighboring Syria, the Iranians have launched a missile barrage at Israel in retaliation—vowing to escalate further—and Israel has ratcheted up their threats against Iranian personnel and interests. 

Meanwhile, the shadow war raging between Iran and its proxies against Israel has roped in the great power allies of these nations. China and Russia have both come down on the side of Iran against Israel. On the other end of the spectrum, Israel’s ally, the United States, has continued giving lethal aid to Israel (at least to a point). 

In fact, after the contretemps between Israel and Iran that eventuated in a mostly failed Iranian missile attack on nuclear-armed Israel, Russia threatened the United States with direct military reprisals if the US struck back against Iran on behalf of its Israeli allies.

All this, as the US leads NATO in a proxy war against Russia for control over Ukraine and as China threatens to invade neighboring Taiwan within the year. 

So, in that greater geopolitical context, the death of Ebrahim Raisi has occurred.

Here’s what we know so far about the circumstances that led to Mr. Raisi’s death. The Iranian president and his foreign minister flew aboard an aging US-build Bell 212 helicopter to northern Iran, along their border with Azerbaijan. President Raisi was going to inaugurate the new Qiz-Qalasi Dam with his foreign minister. While there, they had a supposedly pleasant exchange with the president of Azerbaijan. 

After the event, the Iranian leaders boarded their old Bell 212 helicopters, piloted by Iranian Air Force Colonels Seyed Taher Mostafavi and Mohsen Daryanosh. They piloted their old bird into inclement weather that had descended upon the mountain range they were flying over. Not long after encountering that storm front over the rugged mountainous terrain of northern Iran, the helicopter crashed with no survivors. For several hours, the Iranians conducted search-and-rescue missions to locate the downed helicopter and its occupants. Various nations assisted the Iranians, including the European Union, which used its satellite constellations to aid in the mission to locate the downed bird. 

Even before the Iranians located the downed helicopter and knew whether or not their president was dead, Iranian propagandists were already labeling the event as “suspicious” and accusing Israel’s Mossad intelligence services of having sabotaged the helicopter. 

Of course, Israel has no love for Raisi and certainly possesses the skills to sabotage the helicopter. But given the context of what happened, the likelihood that foul play was responsible for the fatal downing of the Bell 212 helicopter is far less likely than the probability that a combination of human error, poor aircraft maintenance, and inclement weather downed the helicopter. 

Yet, the geopolitical impact of this event is likely going to be the same as if the Israelis had been responsible for the helicopter’s loss. 

In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated while touring Austro-Hungarian military positions in occupied Serbia. Their assassins were Serbian nationalists. Mr. Ferdinand was the heir apparent for the Austro-Hungarian crown. After word of his murder spread and the leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire vowed vengeance upon the Serbs, the Germans sided with Austro-Hungary. 

This, in turn, prompted all the other European powers to pick sides. Before long, a regional crisis was transmogrified into the nightmare known as World War I. 

Mr. Ferdinand’s assassination was intentional and part of a wider political agenda. In all probability, Mr. Raisi’s death was a freak accident. Nevertheless, his death and the suspicions that there was more to his death than what meets the eye may indeed be the spark for the next world war. 

Rather than an assassination of a prominent leader from a declining empire in a region that was of ancillary concern to the rest of the world’s powers, this next world war may be triggered by the accidental death of a tyrannical leader in the middle of a proxy war involving Iran and Israel. 

So, Mr. Twain’s observation that history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme is proven true.

• Brandon J. Weichert is a national security analyst for The National Interest. He is the author of The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (Republic Book Publishers) and of the forthcoming book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (October 22). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.