The mullahs’ coronavirus gamble has backfired

When you’re desperate you do stupid things, and when you do stupid things, you often make what was once merely a desperate situation dire. It’s a lesson I thought Iran’s ruling clerical elite had internalised. Seemingly not. The Islamic Republic is a revolutionary state; it came about after Iranians overthrew the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, in 1979. The Shah fell because when he faced unrest he panicked; he sent the army into the streets to kill people. And the more he killed the angrier they became until eventually he had to flee.

Once, the Mullahs avoided this sort of stupidity. During the 2009 Green Revolution when the people rose up following the fraudulent re-election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the regime sent its paramilitary thugs, the Basij, in among the protestors to infiltrate the crowds and undermine the movement. It conducted strategic executions. It did not send tanks or troops into the street.