King of Kings

On New Year’s Eve 1977, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, extolling Iran as “an island of stability” due to “your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.” The shah, known as the King of Kings, seemed invulnerable, and he was invaluable to the United States as an ally in the Cold War.

Twelve and a half months later, the shah fled Iran into exile, forced from the throne by a volcanic religious revolution led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. How could the United States have been so blind?