The 1979 Iranian Revolution was one of the most stinging US setbacks of the Cold War era.  A longtime ally that the United States depended on as a pillar of regional security, the Shah, gave way to a theocratic regime based on hostility to America.  The revolutionaries stormed the US embassy and seized our diplomatic personnel in November 1979. If that wasn’t enough of a national embarrassment, a dramatic rescue attempt by the US military in April 1980 ended in abject failure at a staging area