There are plenty of ways to frame fascism – just compare 1930s Italy and Germany to find sticking points – so we don’t really have a definition everyone agrees upon. I think one can argue that Iran has plenty of the hallmarks:
✓ A leader with virtually unchecked power (until Feb 28th).
✓ A state with overbearing control over citizens.
✓ A state that directly opposes cultural and political liberalism.
Out of these only 1.5 aren’t just plain old authoritarianism, and out of those opposing cultural liberalism is just conservatism. As for the other, what does “an exclusivist cultural identity” even mean? Fascism requires a lot more than conservative authoritarianism. See this for a more comprehensive bullet point definition of fascism. While some of these points are partially or fully present in Iran, there’s a clear difference between the Ayatollah regime and, say, Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America (let alone obvious candidates like Nazi Germany or fascist Italy). Even an incomplete and immature fascist leader like Trump exhibits more fascism than Khamenei ever did.
There are plenty of ways to frame fascism – just compare 1930s Italy and Germany to find sticking points – so we don’t really have a definition everyone agrees upon. I think one can argue that Iran has plenty of the hallmarks:
Out of these only 1.5 aren’t just plain old authoritarianism, and out of those opposing cultural liberalism is just conservatism. As for the other, what does “an exclusivist cultural identity” even mean? Fascism requires a lot more than conservative authoritarianism. See this for a more comprehensive bullet point definition of fascism. While some of these points are partially or fully present in Iran, there’s a clear difference between the Ayatollah regime and, say, Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America (let alone obvious candidates like Nazi Germany or fascist Italy). Even an incomplete and immature fascist leader like Trump exhibits more fascism than Khamenei ever did.
Theocracy really fits better. Of course it shares many traits.