Coronavirus has exposed Iran’s rotten republic

If coronavirus has taught us anything it’s that if you really want to understand something of a state’s essential character, look at how it battles a pandemic. This crisis has divided humanity up variously, but most markedly along national, if not occasionally stereotypical, lines. 

Germany reacted with organisation and efficiency; it has made, on balance, a good fist of it. The UK wavered; it twisted and turned and did stuff on the hoof. Things could be a lot better, but they could also be a lot worse. Some countries have defied expectation. Greece, for example, locked down quickly and comprehensively: it kept mass death at bay. But in a sense, all this revealed is that – until the really good weather hits at least – the country retains muscle memory from the days of the 1967-74 Junta. This is not the first time in living history that Greeks have had to obey an overbearing state.