The thing with Iran isn't that dictatorship beat democracy. On the contrary, Iran is/was pretty democratic.

The trouble is, as seen in the wake of the Arab spring, democracy in a very Conservative Muslim country often does lead to Islamicists rising to power - and much like the hard right in the west, they tend not to be too big on democracy once they use it to secure power.

Iranians we are likely to meet in the west are pretty well off city dwellers. Hence the image of Iranians as absolute vodka swigging party animals.

The rural poor have a very different outlook. Just think about how different life is for rural and urban people in Western countries and multiply it several times over.