Slowly, Then All At Once

 That line above is attributed in some form to a Hemingway character talking about going bankrupt. It can also be a model for how dictatorships fall. Protests have started in Russia over Putin's mobilization - precisely the reason why he resisted mobilizing until it became clear how badly he was losing in Ukraine.

The model of the Arab Spring isn't a great one, as we can really only point to Tunisia, it's starting point, as a place that has made real strides towards a democratic future. Coinciding with the Arab Spring was the Green Movement protests in Iran, which shook but did not dislodge the clerical regime.

Iran has been restive for years. It's a terribly poorly run country with rampant corruption that oscillates between engaging with and pissing off the rest of the world. The economy had been terrible and widespread protests grew quite violent in 2019.

Now, Iran is seething again. Reformists sat out the presidential campaign after the Guardian Council banned reformist candidates from running for president. As a result, a hardliner - Ebrahim Raisi - was elected and reinvigorated the Morality Police, a paramilitary police force whose job is to enforce dress codes and religious piety in public. Or basically Samuel Alito's wet dream.

Anyway, they took a young woman into custody for wearing her hijab improperly, and she died from a head trauma. She was 22.

Iranian women are renowned for their fierceness, and Iranian men are largely fed up with the constant mismanagement of the economy. Together, they create a real powder keg and the Morality Police lit the fuse.

Authoritarian regimes have access to levels of brute force that are largely unacceptable in democratic regimes. I'm under no illusion that these protests will become a full scale revolution. 

But authoritarianism is brittle - hard but fragile. Certainly the Iranian people deserve better than they get, and if the topple the mullahs it would be an amazing day for the world. Maybe not as great as Putin falling down some stairs, but pretty great.