The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran

In just one hundred days, protests would bring down the Iranian monarchy. Demonstrations would multiply into the millions. Strikes would spread and shut down the economy, including the oil industry that propped up the regime. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on the throne for thirty-seven years, would flee Iran, only to be replaced by a caretaker government that would last just thirty-seven days before it, too, was chased into exile. A revolutionary regime would come to power, headed by Imam—known in the West by his earlier title, Ayatollah—Ruhollah Khomeini. But in October 1978, this drama was hard to foresee.