What the world needs is more vigilance

Increasing the old vigilance always seems to be the call of the hour in dictatorships. We are agreed that the "D" word is a good description of North Korea, right? Here is an article called "Rodong Sinmun Calls for Heightening Vigilance against Imperialists' Deceptive Artifice":

The imperialists pretend to be "peace champions," becoming more talkative about "peace" and stability" than ever before. But this is nothing but a crafty and sinister artifice to benumb the vigilance of the world people and cover up their aggressive and predatory aims.

Rodong Sinmun Sunday says this in a bylined article.

The prevailing situation requires the world people not to be taken in by the imperialists' crafty deceptive ruse, the article notes, and goes on:

It is necessary, first of all, to be vigilant against the imperialists talking about "freedom" and "democracy" while pretending not to seek any aggressive aim.

The "freedom" and "democracy" touted by the U.S. are part of its moves for "globalization" and its immediate goal is to do harm to and bring down the political system in the anti-U.S. independent countries and nations by sending them the wind of freedom.

It is also necessary to guard against the imperialists' behavior of styling themselves as "mediators" and "guarantors" in settling disputes.

It is the trite method of the imperialists to fish in troubled waters by sowing the seeds of discord and antagonism among other countries and nations and stoke them.

It is particularly important to be vigilant against the imperialists' trumpeting about "peace."

They still keep military bases and troops for aggression in different countries and regions and stage ceaseless and reckless war maneuvers, while giving lip-service to "peace."

It is the scenario of the U.S. imperialists to carry out their strategy for world domination by force of arms. Its main thrust is to bring Northeast Asia under their control and its core is to ignite another Korean war with south Korea as a base.

One should not harbor any illusion about the imperialists. It is essential to unite close with a firm revolutionary stand against them and intensify the struggle against them. What is more important is to firmly maintain the principle of independence against imperialism and direct the spearhead of attack to it, not regarding its crafty deceptive ruse as a change in its intrinsic nature.

A recent CS Monitor article explains that "Iran isn't the religious dictatorship that the West imagines" although it admits "A democracy? Hardly." My modest little contribution to this question is to note that Iran's Supreme Leader for Life is certainly into that vigilance thing: "Leader Urges Youths' Vigilance against Enemy's Plot to Hijack Uprisings":

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei voiced confidence about the Muslim nations' growing power, but at the same time urged the Islamic nations to keep vigilant against the attempts made by the enemies to hijack the Muslim uprisings.

Addressing a meeting with participants at the 'International Conference on Islamic Awakening and the Youths' here in Tehran on Monday, Ayatollah Khamenei stated that enemies are trying to make up for the damages they have sustained due to popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other Islamic countries.

"The enemies are busy with designing plots and conspiracies and Islamic nations, specially the youths of the Muslim Ummah (community) who are the engine of the Islamic Awakening, should not allow the global network of tyranny to hijack their revolutions and derail the current and future paths through full vigilance and use of others' experiences," the Leader added. [...]

If you are holding out for Iran to still not be a "religious dictatorship" in some sense, it doesn't look good. Let's put it that way.