Lawrence Freedman
On 16 January 1979, exactly 47 years ago, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, left his country, never to return. His departure had been urged by the man left in charge of the government, Shapour Bakhtiar, a moderate opposition politician, who was hoping to stabilise the country with serious reforms.
It was all too late, insufficient to dampen the revolutionary fervour that had overtaken the country. At the start of February the Ayatollah Khomeini, the 78-year-old cleric who had become the acknowledged leader of the revolution, flew into Teheran from Paris and took control. The next month the Iranian people were asked to decide whether they wanted to live in a monarchy or an Islamic republic. They overwhelmingly chose the latter.
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