Coronavirus Could Kill 3.5 Million In Iran

NEED TO KNOW IRAN A Tin Ear Iran has become an epicenter of the novel coronavirus. Infection rates, death rates and the number of senior officials who have contracted the illness are high and probably underreported. Politics might have played a part in the spread, the New Yorker wrote. The outbreak occurred as leaders wanted citizens to celebrate the anniversary of Iran’s revolution on Feb. 11 and vote in the parliamentary elections 10 days later. They even went so far as to prevent doctors and nurses from wearing face masks and taking other protective measures to avoid causing panic, the Washington Post added. A combination of “cynicism and ideology” kept Iran from acting sooner, Foreign Policy magazine reported. Officials allowed Chinese flights into the country, for example, as other countries blocked them. They likely permitted those flights in part because Iran is dependent on Chinese investment and assistance amid American economic sanctions. But China can’t help Iran now from the economic consequences of the virus, which might also be worse for Iran than elsewhere because of the mullahs’ inaction. The Iranian economy had already contracted by 9 percent last year due to the sanctions. Recently, Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey have closed their borders with Iran, squelching growth even more. Chinese flights stopped Feb. 23. The pandemic might be the “black swan” event that topples Iran’s conservative mullahs from power, wrote the right-leaning American magazine National Review. In addition to the worsening economic woes, Iran’s ruling class are aging and infirm, a demographic especially vulnerable to the virus. Most importantly, Iran’s leaders appear incompetent and out of touch. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, for example, recently called off a major speech traditionally delivered on Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. The Atlantic magazine wrote how many Iranians asked why Khamenei couldn’t have delivered his speech on television, raising questions about whether the man who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini either had the virus or had holed up in order to protect himself as his people suffered. Meanwhile, the American drone strike that killed the military commander Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s slow response to accidentally shooting down a civilian airliner in January had already undermined a lot of popular support for politicians in Tehran. And when Khamenei has made public statements, he has repeated conspiracy theories alleging that the US created the coronavirus, using Iranian genetic material to tailor it to target Iranians specifically, reported Al Jazeera. At the same time, researchers at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology have estimated that as many as 3.5 million Iranians could die of the virus, wrote Deutsche Welle. What to do? The US recently offered help but was rebuffed. That’s even though many believe the US still shouldn’t lift sanctions, such as argued here in this Bloomberg opinion piece. However, standing by as millions of ordinary Iranians perish won’t lead to closer bonds if the regime falls. W