America is at war with a country it doesn't understand

Seven decades of wishful thinking on Iran

On August 18, 1953, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Queen Soraya stepped off a commercial plane at Rome’s Ciampino airport.

The shah and his bride Soraya on their wedding day in 1951.

The shah, wearing sunglasses and a light gray suit, “was pale and grave and had a two-day growth of beard on his chin,” The New York Times reported. His wife, …