If Scoop Jackson was elected President in 1976

[darklordoftech]

How would he handle Iran? Would he get re-elected in 1980?

[The Mikado]

In all likelihood, he'd have not tied the Shah's hands and not only not do what Carter did and tell him to rein in SAVAK, but encourage him to let SAVAK run loose. Carter's humanitarianism and opposition to the Shah's secret police's inhuman brutality and forcing the Shah to lighten up on repression helped create the conditions for the Pahlavis to be overthrown...for better or worse (worse), if Scoop Jackson, as an avowed Cold War hawk, was in charge of the United States, there would be zero American concerns for the human rights and civil liberties of Iranian dissidents.

Muhammad Reza Shah fell trap to the greatest of revolutionary traps: lightening up on repression emboldens dissidents if it's not done carefully. People never throw a revolution at the height of their oppression, they throw a revolution when the boot's been taken off their throat a bit and they have the hope to demand more.

The great Alexis de Tocqueville quote:

"The regime that a revolution destroys is almost always better than the one that immediately preceded it, and experience teaches that the most dangerous time for a bad government is usually when it begins to reform."

Is never more applicable than it is to Iran, though it's applicable to just about every revolution ever.