Call something as it is.

President Ronald Reagan: “I did criticize the President [Jimmy Carter] because of our undercutting of what was a stalwart ally— the Shah of Iran.
And I am not at all convinced that he was that far out of line with his people or that they wanted that to happen. The Shah had done our bidding and carried our load in the Middle East for quite some time, and I did think that it was a blot on our record that we let him down.
Have things gotten better? The Shah, whatever he might have done, was building low-cost housing, had taken land away from the Mullahs and was distributing it to the peasants so they could be landowners— things of that kind.
But we turned it over to a maniacal fanatic who has slaughtered thousands and thousands of people, calling it executions.”