There is a curious parallel between the Ayatollahs’ rule and that of Trump. In neither case are there effective checks on power and in both cases there is insidious patronage throughout the administration that rewards the loyal. And whilst Trump doesn’t (yet) hang his opponents from cranes in public, dissent is treated with harsh sanctions.
Meanwhile in the “Middle East’s only Democracy” (sic) dictatorship no less venal has committed atrocities that are not only not condemned by Western powers but they provide armaments to facilitate them to be carried out.
A fish, they say, rots from the head down. Iran replaced the decidedly rotten Shah with something infinitely worse. And then dictators’ repression has eliminated opposition using religious texts and imperatives to justify their actions. Similarly in Israel the Lebensraum driver in pursuit of a “Greater Israel” is given a phoney legitimacy by references back two thousands years to Old Testament times. And Trump is not averse to justify his social repression (and kowtowing to the Religious Right) with biblical references.
The absence of effective democratic leadership in the tinder box world of the Middle East has brought the region into peril. The greed of the Arms supplying western countries and the blinkered support for Israel ignores the complexity of the status quo and makes it “Good Guy v Bad Guy” binary – which it isn’t.
“The bad thing of war is, that it makes more evil people than it can take away.“ (Emanuel Kant). We’ll see.
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 
History is littered with Tyrants and the loss of life they cause—small men with a greater sense of their phoney narcissistic image. I fear mankind is doomed to accept that such men (it’s never women) will exist no matter what political system exists.
Checks and balances do not work. If they did, the world would permanently be at peace.
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