[Billthedrill]

It's hard now for people to picture the political environment in which the fall of the Shah took place. We were just out of Vietnam and the left was dancing all over the world about the inevitability of revolution. The Sovs were packing for Afghanistan. Pol Pot's holocaust was still being denied, and the Vietnamese army was packing for Cambodia. The entire weight of history looked to be coming down on the side of anyone attempting to disestablish the existing order, and yes, we can blame the French for playing kingmaker in offering Khomeini sanctuary and then unleashing him on Iran.

And so it was easy to paint the Shah as just another Establishment tyrant about to fall under the righteous Power of Da Pee-Pul, and so he was in the popular press just about everywhere. SAVAK didn't help him any either. The one thing people didn't figure - remember, this was the tail end of Peace And Love - the one thing nobody thought was that things could get worse. And one reason that religious fascists are still supported by the left is that they always were.

[nuconvert]

" ...it was easy to paint the Shah as just another Establishment tyrant..."

Friedman considers himself somewhat of an authority on the middle east. He should know better than to refer to Ahmadinejad as a "Shah with a Turbin". Besides the fact that Ahmadinejad isn't a cleric and doesn't wear a turbin. Good Grief! He couldn't have come up with a more ill-informed title for his piece.

[dixiechick2000]

BTTT!

[F14 Pilot]

well put