Iran’s coronavirus tragedy is depressingly predictable

In the name of God. These words define the Islamic Republic of Iran. They stretch across its official paperwork and correspondence; they drive its constitution; they drop from the lips of its Ayatollahs leading Friday prayers; and they imprison its people.

In Iran, the Velayat-e Faqih, the ‘rule of the jurists,’ holds that those best equipped to interpret God’s laws are those best equipped to rule. Authority descends in a straight line: from God to Mullah to Man (and then woman). Iran’s laws render its citizens little more than children clutched in the paternal embrace of a near all-powerful clerical and military class. That this class is repeatedly subject to bouts of extreme violence and paranoia, as well as remaining perennially misogynistic and cruel and incompetent has been the bad luck of Iranians for over forty years.

Now they must contend with coronavirus. The pandemic has hit Iran hard. As of this week there are around 1,800 fatalities, the fourth highest number of COVID-19 deaths after China, Italy and Spain.