َUkrainian refugees continue to flee from Russia’s onslaught, but as in Syria, the flows are not random. Russian president Vladimir Putin, like his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, has deliberately targeted civilians to encourage a flight that he can use to pressure Europe for concessions. According to the United Nations, the Ukraine war has already created more than three million refugees, and that data seems not to include those who have fled eastward into Armenia and Central Asia where costs-of-living are considerably cheaper. That has catapulted Ukraine, in a matter of weeks, to one of the world’s top refugee-generating countries, after Syria and Venezuela.
Ukraine might not hold that distinction for long. Syria has a population of 17.5 million; Venezuela’s is 28.4 million; Ukraine’s is 44.1 million. Iran’s population, however, is nearly double Ukraine’s, and instability is on the horizon.
Regime change is coming to Iran, not because of the outside world but simply because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is old and mortal. While speculation is rife that Khamenei stage-managed Ebrahim Raisi’s rise to the presidency in order to ease the way to his succession, a smooth transfer of power is far from certain. Khamenei neither has the religious credentials nor charisma that his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had; his word will no longer be meaningful after his death.
Complicating succession further is just how lucrative the position has become. Khamenei is corrupt. During his thirty-three-year tenure, Khamenei accumulated billions of dollars through the business interests he controls. To rise to Iran’s leadership is not only to wield vast power unencumbered by the constraints of democracy (the supreme leader stands above and apart from all elected positions in Iran) but also vast wealth. Given how seldom transitions occur—Khamenei’s passing will mark the second transition in more than forty-three years—there is no incentive to wait patiently. Rather, any figure with ambition will make his move and join the destabilizing scrum.
