Americans should know the “color revolution” drill by heart now. We are told that Ruritania is run by a terrible fanatic who is cruelly oppressing his people, is on the verge of acquiring weapons of mass destruction, is collaborating with our diabolical arch-enemy, and is sponsoring global terrorism. Unless the Pentagon spends billions and expends thousands of tons of deadly ordnance to get rid of the terrible Ruritanian madman, the entire region will go up in flames and millions of Americans will be slaughtered.

We are also told that a wonderful democrat-in-exile heading some “Ruritanian National Congress” or “Ruritania National Council” (with its headquarters conveniently located in Washington, DC) is waiting in the wings to replace the dictator and magically transform Ruritania into an inclusive, American-loving democracy. Unfortunately, the new puppet we put in charge of Ruritania—the Ahmed Chalabi or Hamid Karzai or whoever—never lives up to the hype. However, our fear of Ruritania dissipates enough that we can move on to the next regime change operation and forget about the puppet.

While history doesn’t repeat itself, in the case of Iran it certainly does rhyme. Once upon a time, Shah Ahmad Qajar allowed his country to be used as a British base for an intervention in the Russian Civil War, so the Soviet victory in that war was followed up by a brief Soviet occupation of Tehran. With Shah Ahmad falling under Communist influence and putting the British oil concession at risk, by 1921 it was time for the first Western-sponsored regime change operation in Iran to thwart Britain’s diabolical arch-enemy, the Soviet Union.

The British engineered a coup d’état against Ahmad, forging an unlikely coalition of groups to support the coup leader selected by the British as the new Prime Minister, a man who had previously been the commander of a Persian unit serving in the Czarist Army. By 1925 this former Czarist officer was promoted to become the new Shah, taking the throne name Reza Pahlavi.

Shah Reza eventually blundered by showing too much sympathy for Britain’s new diabolical arch-enemy, Nazi Germany. Obviously it was time for a second Iranian regime change operation, so in 1941 Britain and its brand new ally—the Soviet Union—invaded Iran without a declaration of war and forced Reza to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The latter became a figurehead while control over the Iranian state shifted to its corrupt parliament.

By 1949, Iranian parliamentarians began to grow a backbone. Most........

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