Stephen Kotkin

So it's fundamentally a deficit of political legitimacy.

So when we talk about Iran today and how Russia and China didn't even help them with any military support or economic support while they're under tremendous strain from Israel rolling back Iranian power.

And so they kind of got betrayed by their strategic partners.

The strategic partnership among the authoritarian regimes is a fake.

That's true.

It is a fake.

They're out for themselves.

They're opportunistic and they will help the others to the extent that they feel it's helping for themselves.

And the day that they feel it's not helping themselves, forget it, right?

But there's a deeper problem there.

What Iranian regime needs is,

is political legitimacy.

That's what it doesn't have.

It's not just a failure economically.

It's not just a failure in security in its foreign policy terms.

It's hated by its own people.

It's got maybe 20% support in the population.

And a lot of people are indifferent, but a majority of the people despise this regime, want to see it go.

They're patriots for Iran, but they detest the Mullah's clerical regime.

Neither Russia nor China can give political legitimacy to Iran.