This was one of the main targets of the Shah's SAVAK.
I don't think that the American State Department and British Foreign Office this saw them as problems like the Shah did, and used this as a Human Rights issue to "beat up" the Shah, even if, as the article contends, they were using these groups to agitate against the Shah.
Iran would now be one of the leading countries of the world, and would certainly have the developing tech industry that India has, if the Shah had not been overthrown.
A tremendous amount of propaganda was directed at the Iranians, and also at Americans to facilitate the overthrow of the Shah.
President Carter is entirely within the pockets of the Saudis, in fact, he is in an even more defiling portion of their apparel which I will not name here.
These things can only be seen in hindsight.
Khalid was king at the time, but very sickly (died 1982). Spent most of the time jetting back and forth between the US for heart treatment. Fahd was the true ruler as Crown Prince, Khalid did convince Carter to sell Saudi Arabia the F-15s. Khomeini, after taking power attempted to finance and organize to overthrow Khalid, which in turn the Saudi’s financed Saddam in going to war with Iran. I don’t know what the Saudi’s view of the Shah was, but maybe they opposed him for the sake of continued US patronage.