Iran and the back channel to the US

When the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, was killed in a helicopter crash, along with his foreign minister and other officials, the universal view was that it would make little difference in terms of Iran's relations vis a vis the US and the West, or indeed for the Iranian people themselves who would continue to suffer repression and human rights abuses whoever took over the presidency. But I wonder. A major event like the helicopter crash wiping out key members of the Tehran regime just might lead to a change in thinking. The first signs are already emerging. Within an hour or so of the disappearance of the helicopter in the mountains in northern Iran, the US received a plea for help from Tehran in tracing the wreckage. And then it came to light that two senior figures in the Biden administration and their counterpart Iranian officials had met for confidential indirect discussions in Oman (before the helicopter crash) to talk about ways of lowering tensions in the Middle East. Brett McGurk, Biden's Middle East adviser, and Abram Paley, acting US envoy for Iran, expressed Washington's views and ideas to Iranian officials under the auspices of the Omani government, with discussions in separate rooms. OK, they didn't meet to shake hands but they were in the same building with the Omanis acting as the link. As a US official put it, it wasn't the first meeting and it wouldn't be the last. So, a bit of optimism there. And just maybe, with a new president installed in Tehran, even though he will be naturally inclined to rigid conservatism, like his late predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, might be thinking it's time for a more practical and pragmatic relationship with the United States.