Russia and Iran have wildly different histories, cultures and demographics. But today, a similar aura is beginning to waft over both countries: anxiousness, bordering on restlessness.
In Iran, tens of thousands of people, many of them young, have been taking to the streets in dozens of cities and towns to demonstrate against the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was nabbed by Iran’s notorious morality police last month for what they called improper dress. Badly beaten, Amini ended up in a hospital bed and died after falling into a coma.
Originally, the protests centered on the horrific behavior perpetrated by the despised morality police. But as Iranian security forces have cracked down, leading to dozens of deaths, the grievances have multiplied. Iranians who find themselves in a seemingly endless spiral of deprivation and frustration are using the momentum generated by Amini’s death to register loud complaints about Iran’s ruling system. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man who has headed that system since 1989, is now hearing chants calling for his death.
The average Iranian has a lot to complain about. The combination of U.S. sanctions on Tehran’s lucrative petroleum industry and rampant domestic mismanagement haven’t served Iran’s economy well; its gross domestic product has contracted by 52% over the last decade. Core inflation is through the roof, hitting more than 36%, according to a recent World Bank report. Iranians shell out 75% more for food than they did a year ago, The New York Times reported.
In Russia, the problems are different. While there’s no shortage of economic disadvantages in Russia today, the pressure weighing on the Kremlin has far more to do with the war in Ukraine that is going disastrously wrong.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been on top of the cutthroat Russian political system for more than two decades, is beginning to experience some cracks in the facade. The only thing worse than his actual decision to invade Ukraine is his judgment. Putin believed the Ukrainians would roll over after a few days; he was wrong. Putin believed the Russian military high command would exhibit the smarts, tactical fortitude and ingenuity to execute an effective military campaign plan; he was wrong. Putin thought he could easily fracture Europe’s political, financial and military support — however paltry compared to what the United States has provided — by cutting down on natural gas deliveries; he was wrong.
All of this poor decision-making is catching up to the Russian political elite, which is spending more of its time fighting internal battles and looking for scapegoats. Andrey Kartapolov, a top Russian lawmaker on defense issues, has accused the Russian military command of lying about the state of the war. Ramzan Kadyrov, the firebrand warlord of Chechnya, is teaming up with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the private military organization the Wagner Group, to undermine Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Putin, too, is hearing complaints from Kremlin insiders, which have grown in intensity after the Russian military’s mobilization orders were poorly implemented. As Tatiana Stanovaya, one of the foremost observers of Russian politics, observed last week, “The elites are, for now, still prepared to support Putin against Ukraine, but their belief that victory is inevitable is fading.”
From Washington’s vantage point, watching Iranian and Russian politicos struggle to maintain iron-fisted control is, for the lack of a better word, refreshing. But U.S. elites have a habit of assuming that internal difficulties for bad regimes will eventually result in better alternatives. We also tend to assume, perhaps out of a sense of overabiding optimism, that these bad regimes will shortly collapse into ignominy.
Unfortunately, we are often wrong on both accounts. Authoritarian regimes can be far stronger and more durable than they look from the outside. By their very nature, these regimes don’t respond to dissent with a light heart — they take extraordinarily harsh measures to suppress it. The preservation of power is the ultimate objective.
The Islamic Republic has been the object of multiple protests throughout its four decade history, whether it was the 1999 student protests or the 2019 demonstrations against fuel price hikes. Yet on each occasion, the Iranian security forces jailed, threatened and killed their way out of the problem. Although the problem itself hasn’t been resolved, the mullahs were at least able to use the organs of the state to buy themselves time by temporarily beating it into submission.
Syria’s Bashar Assad was willing to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people, torture thousands more, destroy numerous cities and drag his country into civil war to protect the police state his father built in the 1970s.
Even when autocrats do leave, their replacements may not turn out to be much better. The ideal scenario, a dictatorship transitioning into a respectable democracy, is more the exception than the rule. Research shows that only 20% of personalist autocracies are replaced by democracies. In many cases, autocracies give way to other autocracies.
In others, civil war or chaos ensues. Egypt’s longtime dictator president, Hosni Mubarak, was pushed out by mass demonstrations, only for the short-lived democratic transition to be snuffed out by an even more ruthless autocrat in the name of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, a man indicted on genocide charges, was pushed out in favor of a military-run administration. The demise of Moammar Gadhafi, as brutal and bizarre as the man was, turned Libya into a real-life version of “Mad Max,” where militias stake out their turf and run roughshod over the state’s resources.
Ordinary citizens fighting for their rights against oppressive governments is inspiring. Yet the ugly reality should keep us grounded.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
