In 1978, in the midst of popular protests in Iran against the Shah, I was a diplomat in the international law division of the Iranian Foreign Ministry. I also was part of a secret committee that fomented dissent against the Shah’s regime at the Ministry. Some time later, I became a ministry representative at an underground council tasked with coordinating strikes by civic employees and national organizations (the BBC called me a “rebel diplomat” in an interview).

I remember grinning inside when my senior “colleagues” at the ministry did their utmost to convince their Western counterparts that the Shah’s regime would survive this crisis as it had others. Witnessing the broadening dissent within the Foreign Ministry, I knew that the situation in other parts of the regime was no better and that the Shah’s reign would soon crumble.

It did not take too long — the Shah’s regime became history on February 11, 1979.

Now, 31 years later, current Iranian diplomats are sensing danger and are abandoning the ruling mullahs’ sinking ship. This is an important signal for the West to realize that the mullahs, like the Shah, are taking their last breaths.