| Summary/Abstract |
Jimmy Carter is often accused of ‘losing Iran’. It may therefore come as a surprise that no American tried harder to forestall the Iranian Revolution than Carter. The increasing availability of archival evidence reveals that Carter tried to press Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was reluctant to act, to restore order. Carter even contemplated a military coup to prevent the assumption of power by revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. None of this worked, because America’s allies were too fickle and its adversaries too determined. Carter was ultimately guilty not of ‘losing’ Iran, but of misunderstanding it.
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