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those engaged in attempts to overthrow his regime., The Shah was intent on modernizing and westernizing Iran. Imprisonment and torture of political opponents were one of many issues. Religious reactionaries opposed the modernization, which they saw as a threat to their power. They were especially strong outside Teheran . Khomeini was one of their leaders.
Many liberal religious groups in the US which were active against the Vietnam War were also active in pressuring Carter to continue pressing the Shah on human rights violations. I believe the Shah partly listened to Carter, just as he listened to presidents before Carter. Organizations such as Clergy and Laity Concerned About the War were very much involved in opposing the Shah and the human rights violations there.
Western governments have a long history of interference in Iran as a matter of foreign policy. and it did not change with the Carter administration; What changed was the emphasis on human rights and respect for religious/political movements within Iran. The Shah, I believe, considered Carter naive and ignorant of the powers at play within Iran but he partly listened to Carter, just as he followed dictates of presidents before Carter. He was dependent upon the West.
Carter's human rights initiatives were a great and meaningful change but we were not understanding Iran as Iran-we were looking at the country through the lens of our own church/state stances and beliefs. We did not understanding religious fundamentalism in Iran and the power of the ayatollahs or their commitment to violence.
It fostered a belief on our part that since the Shah was bad re human rights, his opposers must be good or better than he. Either/or thinking.
Khomeini was in exile first in Iraq and later in Paris, where westerners opposed to the Shah's regime had access. Most people had no idea that he would be a much more brutal and reactionary ruler than the Shah and would total destroy the nascent women's rights movement that was semi-protected under the Shah.
Upon the Ayatollah's triumphant return to Iran, many in US who promoted human rights for Iran praised Khomeini, or cautioned that he should be given a chance. However, Khomeini wasted no time in executing his enemies. He reversed the steps taken toward modernization, turned a generation of teenaged girls into baby-making machines to bear sons to serve in a war machine where the sons became human sacrifices to a warped theocratic dictator.
The people of Iran did not win their freedom;the freedom-hating supporter of the dictatorial ayatollahs won Iran
I consider the Carter administration's foreign policy stance to have been a break from the previous administrations of Nixon and Ford and as having influenced the Shah to initiate some reforms. But I think the policy was not well thought out and backfired on Carter--resulting in the coming to power of Ronald Reagan.
In terms of a stable democracy--achieving that in Iran may have had a chance but was not going to happen without an incredibly strong American commitment to opposing both the tactics of the Shah and the Ayatollahs--it would require a level of meddling in Iran that I don't believe most Carter supporters would tolerate so soon after Vietnam.
I think essentially Carter dumped the Shah by withdrawing support, pressuring him to institute human rights reforms while not pressuring the religion-based opposition, and mistakenly trusting religion as an engine of human rights reform.
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