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President Jimmy Carter authorized the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the United States for medical treatment — with catastrophic consequences. Carter blundered because of vacillation, shortsighted thinking, a disregard for identified risk and inept implementation that included zero precautions to protect against disaster.
As Trump charts a new course with one of the most powerful nations in the Middle East, Carter’s missteps offer him valuable lessons: When dealing with Iran, a president must verify that information is accurate, consider risks carefully and imagine how one’s own actions will be perceived by Iranians, who evaluate circumstances through an entirely different historical prism.
Like his predecessors, Carter considered Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi an ally and friend. In December 1977, he visited Tehran and toasted the shah for making Iran “an island of stability” and for “the admiration and love which your people give you.” It was a delusional toast, one that demonstrated a total lack of understanding of historical legacies and the political fires raging in Iran.
Power was slipping from the shah’s grasp thanks to a growing revolutionary movement inspired by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and nurtured by resistance to royal repression. This revolution reached a tipping point on Jan. 16, 1979, when security risks forced the shah to flee the country.
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