A Dismal Year Everywhere Was Even Worse for Iran
For many Iranians, it brought an unprecedented level of disease, death and deprivation.
The first of Iran’s many 2020 disasters.
Photographer: Akbar Tavakoli/AFP via Getty Images
Not since the mid-1980s, the height of the war with Iraq, has the Islamic Republic had a year this bad. For ordinary Iranians, 2020 brought disease, death and dearth on a scale few have experienced. For their theocratic rulers, it brought a series of embarrassments and reversals, at home and abroad, bookended by the loss of two of the regime’s great champions.
Year’s end saw a glimmer of optimism — things could scarcely get worse — in 2021, especially if the new administration is Washington is more charitably inclined toward the regime in Tehran. But the likelihood of a hardliner becoming Iran’s next president in the summer bodes ill, for Iranians and the wider world.