was all part of a concerted plan to sow panic in Iran and assert new rules of religious conservatism. But the Rex Cinema arson stood out in its enormity, described as “a holocaust” by one newspaper. In the fervor of anti-shah sentiment, a twisted logic set in: the ruling regime would burn down a cinema to damn the opposition. Thousands of Iranians had stayed on the sidelines for various reasons: they had not suffered in jails or been exiled, they were apolitical, they disliked the clergy. But in that instant of rumormongering, many came to believe that the shah could, and would, dispose of
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