One of the most perplexing questions of the Iran war has been why so many people, both in the Trump administration and among the punditry, thought the regime would collapse as soon as its most senior military and political officials were killed. The answer lies in a common category error: Not all authoritarian states are brittle dictatorships. I’ve seen my share of dictatorships fall apart after decapitation. I saw it in Haiti, where I began my foreign reporting career covering the fall of “president-for-life” Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1986; the country fell into violent anarchy that persists today.

Full opinion : It’s no surprise Iran didn’t collapse. Security states are meant to last beyond any one leader.