I don't know if the zeitgeist in post disaster Iran can really be called apathy and complacency. How about depression and hopelessness? There is actually a specific word, which was used a lot in post WWII France. I'm thinking of Camus and Sartre, but the specific word escapes me. Didier? Can you help me? Anyway, it means a pervasive sense of having absolutely no control of the world around you, just existing in a stoic state of perpetual suffering and loss. Alienation? Existential melancholy? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Whatever. When nothing can be done, there is no point in doing anything. As far as American accountability, we owe it to having an independent judiciary system. When the judges are corrupt or intimidated into whoredom by the powers that be, then accountability decreases proportionally to who you know, and how much you can pay.

Either I can not find or there is not any information about the author even in the guest authors list. You normally put a short background of each author there but has the policy changed recently?

American Woman, thanks for the comment. Perhaps "subdued" or "submissive" is the word you're looking for. That certainly applies to people who were directly affected by the disaster, i.e. lost a love one. But for those citizens who are looking at it from a distance, I think complacency is a better description of their response. Perhaps having a healthy competition for the control of executive power and a free press to blow whistle at the right time can be as effective as an independent judiciary in pushing for greater accountability.

American woman, I would call that, the existential "angst" of a moribund race.