Coronavirus has exposed Iran’s rotten republic

If coronavirus has taught us anything it’s that if you really want to understand something of a state’s essential character, look at how it battles a pandemic. This crisis has divided humanity up variously, but most markedly along national, if not occasionally stereotypical, lines.

Germany reacted with organization and efficiency; it has made, on balance, a good fist of it. The UK wavered; it twisted and turned and did stuff on the hoof. Things could be a lot better, but they could also be a lot worse. Some countries have...