Gaine
AgelessThrival™
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Article from Issue #53 (January 7, 2023)

Fascism Will Destroy Itself, Part 1: Russia and Iran

by Mark Hall

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Two years ago, on January 6th, 2021 something suddenly became very clear: democracy is under assault. In the US, the country often held up as the gold standard of democracy, there was an attempt to reverse the results of a democratic election by force. This got the headlines for quite some time, but it wasn't an isolated incident. In fact, democracy has been under assault for some time now, and a wave of authoritarianism and fascism has been sweeping the planet at an alarming rate.

According to the Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the peak of democratization was in 2015, after which democracy began to fall, and is continuing to fall. This fall comes in several different flavours. Some countries with democratic rule have fallen to military coups. Some elected leaders have removed checks and balances to increase their power. Some already authoritarian states have become more emboldened to tighten their already strong grip on their people.

Despite all of this, I am quite optimistic for the future. In fact, I think we are currently at the peak of authoritarianism. The fascists and dictators are going to collapse like a house of cards, and a new wave of democracy and freedom will sweep the planet faster than anyone could ever dream.

I will outline my thoughts on a country-by-country basis. Today I will focus on Russia and Iran.

Russia

The current Ukraine war brought into public focus something that had for the most part flown under the radar: Russia, despite giving the appearance of a democracy, was actually a de facto dictatorship, in which Vladimir Putin has arrested or murdered anyone who could possibly be a competitor in elections, and has systematically removed many of the checks and balances that restricted his power. Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, he cracked down on the media to silence any dissenting voices. It became a crime punishable by imprisonment to even say anything critical of the war (or even to call it a war, when it was officially a "special military operation"). Protests against the war were brutally supressed, with over 14,000 arrested in the first month of the 2022 Ukraine war alone.

It was a perversion of democracy back in 2014 to invade the Crimean peninsula and call an illegitimate "referendum" where supposedly 96% of Crimea wished to join the Russian Federation. No country that isn't directly allied with Russia has accepted the results of this sham referendum. Then in 2022 they repeated the same trick by staging fake referendums in territories that they had seized by force.

But here's the thing: the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a stupid idea. It was colossally stupid, and Putin should have known it. In 10 months Russia has lost more soldiers than the US lost during the entire Vietnam War. The attempt to take Ukraine's capital Kyiv was a colossal failure. Then there was one huge failure after another as Ukraine took back huge swaths of territory in major counter-offensives.

Why was Putin so badly misinformed and made such a bad decision? It's all part of why dictatorships don't work and are doomed to failure. You cannot make a sound strategic decision when everyone underneath you is too scared to disagree with you, or to honestly deliver bad news to you. Your military can not be competent when higher-ranking officers and generals are promoted based on loyalty rather than skill (and in fact, it is by design that a dictator can not have generals who are competent, since a general who is too good is a threat to the dictator himself). The corruption starts at the top, but propagates through every layer from top to bottom.

Even if Putin had been successful in taking Ukraine, it still would have been the start of his downfall. There would have been an extremely difficult and costly insurgency for years afterwards (even the US suffered from this in Afghanistan and Iraq despite overwhelming military victories). In addition, the world is more interconnected than it has ever been, and Putin failed to take that into account. Invading Ukraine turned Russia into a pariah state, economically isolated from most of the rest of the world. In this day and age, if one country acts too aggressively, the rest of the world reacts to stop the aggression. Putin's list of allies has been reduced to only the most dysfunctional countries in the world. Even China has held back in fully supporting Russia's actions, despite previously declaring an unlimited partnership.

Eventually, a dictator will inevitably make a stupid decision which results in their downfall. The invasion of Ukraine was this stupid decision, and the downfall is nearly complete.

Iran

Iran has elections for its president, but this is merely to provide the outward appearance of a democracy. In truth, the regime decides who is eligible to run for presidency, so the only possible candidates are hardliners who fully support the regime. Not that it really matters anyway, since the president is basically just a figurehead. Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran's theocratic regime has ultimate control over the country's laws.

But that control is faltering, and the regime is well into its final stage of collapse. (see my other articles on Iran here and here for more details). There have already been reports that regime officials are trying to move money out of the country, and have possibly made a deal with Venezuela (a previously democratic country which has fallen into dictatorship) to provide sanctuary for officials and their families in the case of a successful revolution. If this is true, then the end of regime may be closer than expected.

One Terrorist Has Found The Other

When president Zelenskyy of the Ukraine visited the United States, in his speech to congress he mentioned the alliance between Russia and Iran, stating that "one terrorist has found the other". Iran has supplied Russia with drones and missiles for their attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets and infrastructure. Russia has supplied Iran with riot gear and are offering them advice in suppressing their citizens. There may be more details to their partnership that are secret, possibly even aid in developing Iran's nuclear capability.

But their partnership will not save either of them. Both regimes are facing imminent failure. And both governments are already structured in a way which superficially resembles a functioning democracy, so the framework is there for each country to become truly free and democratic. All that needs to be removed are the dictators.