My life has been shaped by the aftermath of a revolution gone bad. I was born in 1979 to Iranian revolutionaries, and when we were growing up my mother characterized the days after the Shah’s ouster as generally euphoric. Many protesters felt that finally democracy was close, she said. After the revolution but before everything changed, people gathered in the street—to speak on top of soapboxes, argue over ideas, and chart the country’s path forward.

Then, of course, everything did change. The Islamists won the day and the Islamic Republic of Iran was born. My father and more than two dozen