There is a difference between a revolution and a counterrevolution. It is a recurrent mistake of the American media to conflate the two. That is because the success of 1776—the 250th anniversary of which we celebrate this year—predisposes us to sympathize with revolutions. I can think of no better explanation for the naivete of much liberal commentary on subsequent revolutions: France in 1789, Russia in 1917, China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, Nicaragua in 1979, Egypt in 2011 and, most relevant to today, Iran in 1979.

Let it never be forgotten that, in The New York Times on February 16, 1979, the Princeton professor Richard Falk confidently asserted: “The depiction of [the Ayatollah Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false. What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals.” Moreover, “the key appointees” in the new revolutionary government had “a notable record of concern for human rights and seem eager to achieve economic development that results in a modern society oriented on satisfying the whole population’s basic needs.”

“Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics,” Falk gushed, “Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third‐world country.”

Nope.

It turns out the commentators Falk was refuting were right. Khomeini really was “fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices.” They were also right to associate him “with efforts to turn the clock back 1,300 years, with virulent antisemitism, and with a new political disorder, ‘theocratic fascism,’ about to be set loose on the world.” As there is no accountability whatsoever for liberal professors, Falk was subsequently appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as Special Rapporteur on the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. The Iranian people, meanwhile, have endured close to 47 years of theocratic fascism...