The fall of the Shah was an epic. His downfall had about it something of the Medieval morality play, even something of a Greek tragedy. It might have qualified as Shakespearian tragedy if the Shah had been a truly great man who fell from grace through a single flaw. He was not a great man and his sins were many. Hubris was perhaps his greatest crime, although the Iranians saw things somewhat differently. Yet they sensed this mythic element about their revolution even before the King of Kings piloted his personal Boeing out of Mehrebad airport for the last time on 16 January 1979.

LRB 19 January 1989 | PDF Download