Anne Applebaum

with its pretensions to universality or at least the pretension to, you know, that sooner or later every Muslim would be part of a regime like this one.

You know, that gave them the confidence to be involved in, you know, all over the Middle East.

It's what motivates their proxies and so on.

So I think it does matter.

Although I think, you know, Scott, the fundamental basis of your question, which is, you know,

you know, what binds this group of autocracies who work together, and right now the most important ones are Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, you know, plus a handful of others, is really not religion and obviously it's not any ideology.

So, you know, ideology doesn't matter.

I mean, the Chinese are communists and the Russians are nationalists and the Iranians have a theocracy.

You know, what binds all of them is rather their ideology

dislike of and fear of the language of the liberal world.

In other words, the language of rights, the language of rule of law, the language of separation of powers.

You know, all of these are states that are seeking to create a kind of total environment where the regime or the

leader or the ruling party controls all media, all conversation, makes all the decisions, controls the court system, which is why so many of them become so profoundly corrupt, controls the legal system.

And what all of them are fighting against is the influence of

liberalism, secular liberalism, democracy, whichever word you prefer to use, but the influence of other cultures where you have actual debate, where you have independent courts, where you have the rule of law.

And I think they have that in common with the other regime.

Although, as I said, I think the religious nature of their regime gives them a particular fanatical edge that you might not find in Russia or China.

I think the difference is, just to say what Fiona just said in a sentence, is there's a big difference between wars that are existential

and wars of choice.

If you are an Iranian and you are in the regime, then you are fighting for your survival, for your family, for your future, for your life.