What's wrong with using the ISO codes here?

The ccTLDs belong to the sovereign entity whose code it is, in many cases they let some for-profit outfit exploit this resource and keep some fraction of the resulting income.

If the sovereign entity doesn't like how it's run, that's on them to fix it. It's unfortunate if people somehow end up building something important using a name that's ultimately controlled by some tin pot dictatorship, but it's not like you don't know up front.

I thought that, by convention, all dictators were "tin pot". And that the republics they governed were always "banana".

Banana republics are ones that US corporate interests installed after forcing out more democratic leadership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Guatemala