As John Limbert, the erudite Iran scholar and retired US diplomat (taken hostage in Iran for 444 days) once reflected on the 1979 Iranian revolution, “Our liberal-minded Iranian friends proved to be helpless in political turmoil....[T]hey could write biting editorials,” but lacked the stomach to “throw acid, beat up opponents, organize street gangs...and engage in the brutality that wins” in political uprisings.