Iranian state television broadcast footage of three of the late Ayatollah Khamenei's sons attending his funeral. Mostafa, Meysam, and Masoud showed up to pray. The new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, did not attend his own father's funeral.
Let me get this straight. You inherit the most powerful position in the theocratic regime. Your father just died. The cameras are rolling. And you skip the funeral.
Retail traders are now convinced this is bullish for crude oil futures because "instability equals higher energy prices." They heard that once on CNBC in 2008 and have been trading the same idea for eighteen years. Doug from Wisconsin just mortgaged his pontoon boat to go long on Brent crude because a guy who didn't show up to a funeral might cause geopolitical tension. Doug's risk management strategy is checking his portfolio once a week and saying a prayer to Jim Cramer.
The optics here are flawless. Nothing says "legitimate transfer of power" like the new guy refusing to be photographed at the ceremony that validates his authority. This is like skipping your own college graduation because you're too busy being the dean. Mojtaba is either playing fourth-dimensional chess or he just really hates funerals.
Technical analysts are drawing trendlines on Middle East leadership charts. They've identified a head-and-shoulders pattern in the succession timeline. The neckline is at "showing up to mandatory state events." Support broke when Mojtaba stayed home. The next level is complete governmental collapse, which oddly enough has the same chart pattern as GameStop in 2021.
Three brothers pray on camera while the fourth runs the country from an undisclosed location. This is the kind of family dynamic that makes Thanksgiving dinner look like a f*cking peacekeeping mission.
Photo by Moslem Daneshzadeh on Unsplash
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