U.S. Can Best Advance Iranian Justice from the Sidelines

It's easy to forget that the fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, came as a shock to much of the world. It's worth remembering that now, as another revolution is underway.

The first demonstrations against the Shah had begun in 1977 with just hundreds of participants. The revolt grew steadily but spasmodically, interrupted by significant periods of calm.

The shah projected a convincing image as the protector of the Persian Gulf. He had control of modern armed forces estimated be more than 400,000 strong. He had the support of the United States, including its intelligence agencies.

His domestic security force — SAVAK — had virtually unbounded power to arrest and detain. It was omnipresent in its surveillance and brutal in its treatment of dissidents.

The idea that an Islamic street uprising — led remotely by the messianic Ayatollah Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, who had lived in exile since 1964 — could succeed against so modern and totalitarian a state bordered on the preposterous.

President Jimmy Carter spent New Year's Eve in 1977 with the Shah in Tehran. He said, "Iran is an island of stability in one of the most troublesome regions of the world. There is no other state figure whom I could appreciate and like more."

Even as daily demonstrators in Iran's major cities numbered in the thousands, a CIA analyst concluded in August 1978 that "Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation."

Five months later, the Shah of Iran left the country, never to return.

Ayatollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the new Islamic Republic of Iran. He was Time magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1979.

Thirty years later, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the man who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 — is embattled in ways strikingly similar to the last Shah. He has absolute power and rules with an iron fist.

He's supported both by military elite and militia thugs. He stole a popular election in June, handing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another term. He seems thoroughly and immovably entrenched.

But the Iranian people again have responded with dissent, heroically risking their lives.

Peaceful street demonstrations convulsed violently last weekend. Police opened fire on protesters on the sacred day of Ashura, a day reserved for mourning Shia Islam's holiest martyr. The BBC calls it "the biggest challenge to the government since the 1979 Islamic revolution."

The United States was powerless to prop up the Shah 30 years ago. Our support of his regime actually helped to galvanize the revolution. For the same reasons, our efforts now to hasten the fall of Ayatollah Khamenei would prove not just impotent but counterproductive, strengthening the regime's hand, uniting the nation against us rather than the ruling clerics.

The United States must preserve all options in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. But in matters of Iran's tyrannical and corrupt government, the quest for justice must be left mainly to the courageous Iranian people. An attentive America can best help with solidarity from the sidelines.

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