For years, the Islamic Republic narrated a story in which Reza Shah’s stepping down from power at the time of the Allied invasion was presented as evidence of weakness and submission, and his son’s departure from power in 1979 as the result of fear and incapacity.

And then, in only two months, it managed to draw an image for history and for the people that showed why one stepped aside rather than watch all the infrastructure built for Iran from the ruins of the Qajar period destroyed before his eyes, and why the other, faced with a choice between leaving and a massacre like the killings of Dey, chose to leave.

Staying at any cost does not lead to staying forever. It leads, eventually, to leaving at any cost. A ruler measures that cost for the country and its people, not merely for the survival of his own rule.

Power is a historical concept, not merely a temporal one. The bargain that power makes with the people and with the history of a land makes return possible, because what remains is entrusted to collective memory just as much as what was destroyed for the sake of survival.