In November 1978. President Carter praises the Shah for creating "an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas in the world." The CIA predicted peace for decades to come. Thirteen months later, the regime collapsed. Seemingly no one saw it coming, and occurred only by accident. In Iran 1979, leading historian of the country, Evrand Abrahamian, argues that the revolution of 1979 was totally inevitable.

The regime's fatal flaw was written in 1953, when the CIA and MI6 overthrew Mohammad Mossadeq—Iran's national hero who dared nationalize oil. The western powers, replaced him with a faux monarch of Shah. In an age of anti-colonial nationalism, the restored monarch became the symbol of foreign interference. For 25 years, the Shah tried to escape this original sin, despite crowning himself heir to 2,500 years of Persian empire. Each attempt backfired. And so, as In 1979, the hollow regime crumbled like a house of cards. . In thirteen short months, mass demonstrations and nation-wide general strikes brought down a seemingly formidable regime.

Drawing on recently declassified documents from the Foreign Office, State Department, CIA, and National Security Council—unavailable to earlier scholars—plus memoirs published in Iran over four decades, this book dismantles previous explanations and reveals the simple truth: a regime built on a lie cannot survive indefinitely.