The Iranian Revolution blindsided US Cold War planners.

Evidence

A bulwark against the spread of Communism in the Middle East, Muhammad Reza Shah’s secular government had worked closely with the US government during the Cold War. Thus the arrival of an Islamic, anti- American theocracy was a seismic blow to US Cold War policy. Few government officials had anticipated the Iranian Revolution, much less planned a response. The political crisis took immediate urgency when Iranian students overtook the US embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two American diplomats and citizens hostage for more than a year. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 670

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the ‘decisive battles only validate already-probable outcomes’ reading — here, a revolution that blindsided planners upended the regional order. — connects to: Islam organizations were US allies before the 1979 Iranian Revolution — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 389