I used to dismiss all the arguments from Russians "but Americans do the same thing" but the more I learn about how the US works, the more I realize they have a point.

The point is that it is not YOU who is doing it. It’s about separating people from the actions of whoever is in power in their place.

The problem is that as West we (collectively) have double morality standards.

We call foreign governments regimes and their leaders brutal dictators (they might as well be, that's another discussion). But then we are also eager to extract punishment (like the OP describes) from the individuals who live under the regime/dictator, and often have very limited options to act.

Then we call ourselves democracies, shining example to all the world. But we fail to recognize our personal responsibility for the actions of our governments. Because when a warmonger, thug, wannabe dictator or international bully-extraordinaire comes into power in a democracy, we probably could have personally done a lot more to prevent it, with little fear of repercussions, and we didn't.

Democratic values should cut both ways.

> Then we call ourselves democracies, shining example to all the world. But we fail to recognize our personal responsibility for the actions of our governments. Because when a warmonger, thug, wannabe dictator or international bully-extraordinaire comes into power in a democracy, we probably could have personally done a lot more to prevent it, with little fear of repercussions, and we didn't.

Really? Tell me how Americans could have voted that would have not lead to giving billions in weapons to Israel to flatten Palestine.

I'm pretty sure there are, and were, candidades for Congress that would vote against that, at least in some congressional districts. It just wasn't high enough on the voter agenda. Also Kamala Harris would be at least a bit less friendly towards Israel. Possibly much less friendly.

Iran is much less democratic than the US and the rest of the Western world. 158th from 179 entries here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Dem_Democracy_Indices

Yes, that's the point they're making. Arguably US citizens are more complicit in the crimes of Israel than Iranians are in the crimes of Russia since Americans have more capacity to choice their leadership.

I understood that, only posted what I did because let's just not say "Iran is a democratic country, like the US". It is not.

Iran has a longer history, obviously, but it’s worth mentioning the US is no longer a democratic country. The congress has effectively delegated its powers to the president. You can’t really come back from that any time soon.

You (or rather the US) can come back from that in the next elections, let's hope it works.

Good, looking at data.

Now search what happened to the Iran's democracy in the 70s and why their redemocratization stopped in the 90s.

Why stop there, let us go another millenium or two into the complete offtopic territory.