''Why communist Romania’s endgame has lessons for Iran'' By CHRISTIAN OLIVER 1/21/20

''Romania’s revolution over Christmas 1989 severely embarrassed Iran’s ruling clerics — and now holds lessons for how a spiraling political crisis in the Islamic Republic could play out.

As things spun out of his control in Romania, dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu was being fêted as an honored guest in Tehran. When he returned home and was promptly shot, Iran’s leadership found themselves squirming over why they had rolled out the red carpet for a brutal despot loathed by his own people. Newspapers and parliamentarians turned up the heat on then-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati...''

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