George Friedman, "Western misconception meets Iran reality" [a Stratfor report], Real Clear World, June 15, 2009.

[A similar error with different historical details is unfolding in Afghanistan--and elsewhere. -jlt]

In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.

The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.

Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization.

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