Excellent article, written by DataRepulican, Jennica Pounds.

Gulf security architecture required regional stability. For 47 years, Khamenei provided both. He was brutal, but he was manageable. He was the right kind of authoritarian: one whose survival was more useful to the framework than his removal. The 36,500 Iranians documented in the regime’s own massacre records were, from this perspective, an acceptable cost.

It appears some brutal dictators are more equal than other brutal dictators.

Thanks for sharing.