Current protests in Iran are reminiscent of the uprising in 1979 that forced the exodus of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and put the mullahs in charge. I was a reporter for Newsweek at the time, covering the White House. I remember learning from President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, that the administration was pleading with the Shah to crack down on protestors infused with religious fervor over his efforts to modernize the country. He refused to use force against his own people.

Instead, suffering from cancer, Pahlavi fled and found refuge in the U.S.—former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and banker David Rockefeller having pressured Carter to let him into the country receive medical treatment. We all know how the saga unfolded from there: Iranian students taking over the U.S. embassy in Tehran and a humiliating hostage standoff that ended some 444 days later with Carter’s defeat.

Several decades and presidents later, the Trump White House is scrambling to deal with a similar set of circumstances: an unpopular regime, propped up by the military,........

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