Yes, this is an underrated point and why I’m holding out hope for a positive outcome. I’m convinced that, before the revolution, Iran was on the same trajectory as European monarchies that had become democracies. At that point, countries like Denmark had been democracies for less than 75 years.
And then France sent Khomeini back to Iran on a chartered Air France 747 & stifled that. France also built Dimona nuclear plant in Israel in 1963 and then tested multiple times nuclear weapons in Algeria from 1960-1966 in the Algerian Sahara & mountains & allowed Israel to observe these explosions.
