What if Russian President Vladimir Putin is like Tehran leadership, on the Volga — a leader for whom the appearance of winning matters more than economics, casualties, or the condition of the nation? The contrast is important. 

Iran’s revolutionary leadership can derive legitimacy from resistance itself. Isolation becomes evidence of ideological purity. Economic deprivation can be reframed as sacrifice in a larger religious struggle, while an insulated elite retains much of its wealth and transfers the sacrifice onto a population it considers expendable. These are the “believers.”