“It’s hard to find areas where we disagree,” continued Carter. “We have no nation on earth … closer to us.” More so, “And there is no leader with whom I have a deeper sense of personal gratitude and personal friendship.”

This was a glowing endorsement of the Shah’s continued reign.

And yet, there was trouble afoot.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with promoting human rights and democracy. But it was crucial, always, to be extremely careful that in elevating such values we didn’t replace one authoritarian leader with a far worse one, swapping an authoritarian for a totalitarian who would be worse for that country, for America, and for the world.

The president from Plains, Georgia, wanted a foreign policy that prioritized human rights and democracy above all else.

If you lost the Shah, that was what Iran would get, courtesy of the Ayatollah.

Very soon, just a year later, Iran was teetering on the precipice. This was clear when a reporter on December 7, 1978, asked President Carter if he thought the Shah “could survive” the present crisis. That question was once inconceivable. Nonetheless, previous presidents would have immediately responded in the affirmative, with an unequivocal statement that went something like: “You can be damned sure the Shah will survive. He has America’s unwavering support. He remains a great friend. We will not abandon our close ally.”

Instead, President Carter offered a stunning response that immediately became infamous: “I don’t know. I hope so. This is something that is in the hands of the people of Iran. We have never had any intention and don’t have any intention of trying to intercede in the internal political affairs of Iran.” And then this: “We personally prefer that the Shah maintain a major role in the government, but that’s a decision for the Iranian people to make.”

This was an extraordinary statement. The fact was that America had long interceded in Iran’s internal political affairs. We did so to keep the Shah in power. To say we were no longer going to intercede, and that we merely “preferred” that the Shah have a “role” in the government, was a headscratcher and jawdropper. The reality was that Iran was the Shah and the Shah was Iran. Alas, Carter said that whether the Shah would “maintain a role” in governing his country was a decision in the hands of the Iranian people. America had no intention of intervening.

For the Iranian Islamists, that was the green light — the green flag, if you will. They took to the streets, which erupted.

Shockingly, the Carter administration internally had decided that the Ayatollah would not pose a great threat to the country. The National Front and other “moderates” in opposition to the Shah would lead the nation. Khomeini would probably not make major changes nor reverse the popular elements of the Shah’s Western-style modernization. The Shah himself was becoming an obstacle to stability. This was the “remarkable consensus” (in the words of Carter NSC official Gary Sick) at a decisive January 11, 1979 mini-SCC meeting in the Carter White House that sealed the Shah’s fate.

On January 16, merely five days after that meeting and five weeks after Carter’s infamous public statement, the Shah fled Iran.

Two weeks later, on February 1, a triumphant Ayatollah returned to Tehran. He had said he would not return until the Shah left. He was now in charge.

Americans Held Hostage

As for the Shah, he bolted for Egypt, welcomed there by Anwar Sadat, and then went country to country in exile (Morocco, Bahamas, Mexico, Switzerland). He was not only homeless but very sick with cancer. President Carter, the benevolent Bible Baptist, granted a request from the Shah to come to New York City on October 22, 1979 to receive special cancer treatment. This gesture enraged the Iranian fundamentalists.

On November 4, they seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took over 50 hostages, to be held for 444 days—freed not until January 20, 1981, as Ronald Reagan was being inaugurated after crushing Carter in the November 1980 presidential election. (RELATED: Write That Damned Book — Now!)

The Shah left America on December 17, 1979. He died on July 27, 1980 at age 60. He never returned to his homeland. It was toast.

The Ayatollah proceeded to revolutionize Iran. It became the world’s leading theocratic terrorist state for 46 years and running.

To be clear, the Shah was no democrat, but he certainly was nothing like the theocrats that wrecked his country. The mullahs created a brutal, repressive, totalitarian state. No other country in the world — including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya — has so consistently sponsored terrorism. And of course, Iran has also long sought nuclear weapons. Because of that, America bombed Iranian nuclear sites last weekend. (RELATED: MOPping Up Iran)

It didn’t have to be this way. All hell broke loose under Jimmy Carter. Joe Biden’s four years have been described as “Jimmy Carter II,” and not without due reason, including in the Middle East. President Donald Trump, like President Ronald Reagan, was left with a mess to clean up.

We are still dealing with Jimmy Carter’s disaster in Iran. And it may be far from over.

Paul Kengor is Editor of The American Spectator.Dr. Kengor is also a professor of political science at Grove City College, a senior academic fellow at the Center for Vision & Values, and the author of over a dozen books, including A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism, and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.