Regime in tough spot as every Iranian has been affected by economic collapse, says Scott Anderson Premium

Scott Anderson discusses Iran's economic collapse, its impact on protests, and the regime's struggle in a changing political landscape.

In King of Kings, Scott Anderson revisits the fall of Iran’s last Shah and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. With Iran once again roiled by protests and the United States leaning into dangerous rhetoric, Anderson spoke to The Hindu at the Jaipur Literature Festival about his fascination with the country, the revolution’s relevance today, and why predicting what comes next remains so difficult. Edited excerpts:

You mentioned a road trip you took with your father in your teens through the West and central Asia, and about having watched the protests that happened when the Shah visited Washington in 1977. Is that where your intense interest in Iran began?

My father took me out of school for the trip in 1974-75. We were living in England then. I didn’t go to ninth grade; we travelled for a year in a Volkswagen camper. It changed my life. We went to India, East Asia, Afghanistan and Iran. What I remember from the trip to Iran is that every village had a statue or a poster of the Shah, like a kind of personality cult.

Right after high school, I was working for the American Treasury Department, and I happened to be outside the White House when the Shah was on a state visit to meet President Jimmy Carter in November, 1977.

There was a massive brawl between pro and anti-Shah supporters. Some of the teargas the police used wafted towards the dignitaries, and they had tears streaming down their faces. This proved to be something of a trigger for the Iranian Revolution.

The Iranian National Television, government-controlled, streamed it live, and what people back in Iran saw were thousands of anti-Shah demonstrators, pitched battles between pro and anti-Shah protesters. Within weeks, the first large anti-Shah demonstrations began in Tehran.