Iran’s clerical tyrants are as different from Mark Twain as it’s possible to imagine. But since they toppled the shah in 1979, they might often have echoed him, saying, “reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.”

As Iranian popular protests multiply and grow into their third week, it is devoutly — if that’s the right word — to be wished that they will finally topple the revolting Islamist regime. For nearly half a century, it has sown violence and unrest across the Middle East, exported terrorism around the world, including to the United States, and murdered and suppressed its own people.

But happy predictions of its demise have always proved premature, as I know from personal experience. In the 1980s, I wrote a monograph on Iran, researching which was thrilling for an aspiring journalist in his 20s. It included a clandestine meeting with the........

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