Iran’s sudden leadership vacuum after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi has created two parallel uncertainties: the short-term mechanics of executive succession and a longer running question about how Tehran will manage its regional partnerships and proxy toolkit. The constitutional pathway to replace a fallen president is clear and fast. First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has assumed the acting presidency while a snap election must be held within 50 days. The Guardian Council is the body that vets and approves presidential candidates, and it moved quickly to set a condensed timetable for registration and campaigning. [1][2]
Those procedural facts, however, only partly describe the strategic reality. In Iran’s system the presidency is constrained by the Supreme Leader and by security institutions, above all the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force. Core elements of foreign and security policy are set from the top and executed through the IRGC and its regional networks. That institutional architecture means that a change in the occupant of the presidency is unlikely to produce an immediate reversal in Tehran’s posture toward partners like Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi Shiite militias or the Houthi movement. Short-term continuity therefore remains the default expectation. [3][4]
Yet Raisi’s death removes a political actor who had been considered by many inside and outside Iran as part of the hardline succession equation. That alteration of the elite balance matters because succession is not simply a personnel question. It alters incentives and the distribution of influence among competing centres of power. If the vacancy sharpens competition among clerical constituencies, military commanders, and patronage networks, two second-order effects are plausible for Iran’s proxy posture. One plausible path is consolidation: security organs could tighten operational control over proxy forces to present a coherent external front while elite politics are settled. Another plausible path is instrumentalization: hardline or security-aligned factions might amplify support for external partners to produce rally-round-the-flag effects at home or to deter perceived external interference. Both paths would increase the odds of more assertive proxy activity rather than less. [3][4]
To be concrete about the proxy ecosystem: Iran’s patronage is diverse. Lebanon’s Hezbollah remains its most institutionalised partner, receiving long-term training, financing and materiel flows. Iran has also deepened ties with Palestinian groups, cultivated Iraqi Shiite militias, and expanded the transfer of technology and munitions that have materially empowered the Houthis in Yemen. Reporting and multilateral assessments in recent months have documented practical Iranian assistance to Houthi operations and Iranian and allied advising in the region, demonstrating that Tehran’s proxy relationships are not merely rhetorical. Those channels offer Tehran leverage in multiple arenas at relatively low cost. [5][6]
What can a president do, and what can they not do? By constitutional design and by practice, the president cannot unilaterally change core security commitments decided by the Supreme Leader or dismantle the IRGC’s networks. A president who sought to de-escalate or reprioritise resources would still need buy-in from the Leader and from the IRGC. That constraint cuts both ways. A president nominally more open to diplomatic engagement could still face limits when national security organs frame proxy relationships as strategic assets. Conversely, a president aligned with hardline security elites might streamline state support to proxies by easing bureaucratic friction or reallocating resources. In other words, the presidency matters for tone, allocation and diplomatic signalling but not for the underlying command relationships that sustain Tehran’s regional outreach. [3][4]
For external actors the practical implications are immediate. First, short-term continuity in Iran’s proxy posture is the prudent baseline. Military planners and regional governments should assume that existing command and logistics lines will remain functional through a rapid presidential transition. Second, a period of elite uncertainty inside Iran raises asymmetric risks. If security organs move to shore up domestic legitimacy, they may lean on proxy operations as a pressure valve or bargaining chip. Third, diplomatic openings should be calibrated to the limits imposed by Iran’s institutional structure: outreach through non-security channels can be useful but will not substitute for parallel engagement—or credible deterrence—directed toward Tehran’s security institutions. [3][5]
A final, strategic consideration concerns the longer timeline of supreme leadership succession. Raisi had been named in some analyses as a possible future candidate to lead the country at the highest level. His absence alters internal computations about who might succeed Ayatollah Khamenei. That matter is decisive because the identity and orientation of a future supreme leader will shape Tehran’s grand strategy, including its use of proxies, for a generation. External policy now needs to be robust to two eventualities: a successor who preserves the present configuration of power and a successor whose accession generates renewed internal jockeying. Both outcomes create different but significant risks for regional stability. [3]
Policy implications for partners and analysts are straightforward. Maintain deterrent and defensive preparedness for continued proxy operations. Protect maritime and commercial traffic, invest in intelligence cooperation that tracks logistics flows to proxy networks, and sustain pressure on the specific mechanisms that enable transfers of weapons and technology. At the same time, preserve diplomatic avenues that could exploit elite incentives for sanctions relief, trade, or de-escalation if Iran’s civilian leadership convinces the supreme leadership and security establishment that a different allocation of national priority would better secure regime survival in the medium term. In short, plan for continuity but keep pathways open for change. [3][5][6]
Iran’s upcoming snap election will close one chapter of the immediate crisis but not the underlying structural questions. Those questions are institutional: who controls the levers of coercion, how resources are routed to external partners, and who will occupy the apex of the theocratic system when the current supreme leader can no longer do so. Short of a settled answer to the succession question, Tehran’s proxy relationships remain an enduring and adaptable instrument of statecraft. External actors should adjust policy and posture to that reality while avoiding the temptation to overinterpret changes at the level of the presidency as equivalent to strategic reorientation of the Islamic Republic as a whole. [3][4][6]