In reality, nations and peoples may pretend to Wilsonian, UN style principles when it suits them, but as to how the world actually works, equality and respect are based on power and money, wisdom and diligence in their use, the pursuit of national interest, and natural affinity based on religion, system of government, culture, and trade.
Iran's mullahs were never going to be anything but our enemies or on our payroll, which was a key part of how the CIA kept the Shah in power. Carter cut the mullahs off from the CIA's system of bribes, which soon led them to turn on the Shah and the US in discontent and to advocate revolutionary aims steeped in Shiite Islam. The mullahs have run Iran ever since, accruing great wealth in the process. Most of the populace now hates and fears them, with Islam itself suffering much discredit.
If you have a source for the mullahs being paid by the CIA, I’d like to see it. Everything I’ve ever seen shows that the Shia clergy hated the Pahlavi Dynasty from the beginning because they opposed the modernization that had begun with when the old dynasty was removed from power. In fact the mullahs supported Mosaddegh for that reason and only turned against him at the end because they felt he was going too far in that same direction.