I have just finished reading Kenneth Pollack’s Persian Puzzle (amazingly good) and he lays the blame squarely on the shah’s incompetence. It is his belief that short of an invasion, there was absolutely nothing Jimmy could have done to save the shah. It is well-documented and even though he works at the Brookings Institute, I find myself calling into question my earlier beliefs on the subject.
Anyhow, one of the few times that something has managed to jar my thinking a different direction.
Sticky!!! 
Fred -
Re-inventing history and creating a false legacy they are. Carter, and his globe-trotting cronies w/out portfolio, hung Reza Pahlavi out to dry. Wouldn’t even let him in the USA for cancer therapy.
Who let Khomeni come back from France? Who blocked efforts to halt the “students” who were part and parcel of the “Revolutionary” movement that followed Khomeni?
Who were the “revolutionary students”?
It wasn’t the Stone Cutters Guild.
Maybe its a good book; I’ll try and find it. But just remember…Iran wasn’t Carters only manifestation of incompetence.
No need to convince me on that. haha