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dressed
 in uniforms from an ancient time.  The soldierly garb belonged
to the era of Cyrus and Xerxes--legendary Iranian rulers.156  2,500 years
ago, these Persians had built an empire.  The Shah dreamed of doing
the same.
Though the country owed much of its progress to the Americans,
a rabble-rousing clergyman said the Yankees had placed the Iranians in
chains and robbed them of their self-respect.  The cleric understood the
needs of the pecking-order far better than the Shah.  Despite the
increases in the standard of living, the Iranian people were seething
with frustration.  And contrary to Western assumptions, it wasn't
because of political oppression.  Savak, the secret police, was brutal.
But the country offered far more freedom than any of its immediate
neighbors.
In 1978, when the man of God called for it, Iranians rioted.  They
ran through the streets by the hundreds of thousands.  At first, the
Shah's police and soldiers felt helpless to end the demonstrations.
Finally, they joined the demonstrators.  The Shah who had given his
people everything that American policy defines as happiness was
driven from the country.  And the clergyman who understood the
pecking order's hungers returned from exile to become Iran's new
ruler.  He was a man we've met before: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The Ayatollah pulled off a pecking order trick of astonishing
proportions.  He preached a view in which Iran was suddenly at the
very peak of a new kind of hierarchy.  In his rhetoric, Iranians were
transformed from mere followers of America to leaders--leaders of an
Islamic revolution which would soon sweep the world.   The Iranians,
said the Ayatollah, were morally superior to the infidel dogs, the
inhuman western devils, who preferred their stereos to the words of
Mohammed.  The Iranians followed the words of Allah.  The
Americans did not.  The Iranians championed the cause of
Mohammed.  The Americans did not.  The Iranians followed the basic
rules of decency--they kept their women in black, forbade kissing and
hugging in public, and outlawed the nudity of bathing suits.  The
Americans flung their shamelessness in the face of all mankind.  The
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