Coronavirus Tests Iran’s Limits

The spread of coronavirus around the world has been rapid and disruptive, but nowhere is the outbreak as uncontrolled and chaotic as it is in Iran.

Although Iran only confirmed its first cases on February 19, the virus has spread widely and infected people from every class of Iranian society.

Dictatorships and the Virus

The coronavirus, which originated in China late last year, has begun its definite spread across the globe. Each day brings news of new infections, and new countries in which symptoms of the virus have been observed. But one surprising locus for the diffusing virus is now Iran, far from China.

European Leaders’ Response to Iran Protests Is Weak and Disingenuous

World leaders can claim to have been taken by surprise by the protests which have erupted in Iran over the past few days.

After all, many European politicians and American analysts confidently declared, as recently as October, that American sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its foreign operations apparatus had united the Iranian people behind the nation’s theocratic government and its security state.