EVERY STORY HAS AN inciting incident. An adultery drama opens with the discovery of a text message, a detective yarn with a body floating in a river. Sometimes it reaches back decades — in the case of Tehran, the superb Israeli thriller series — to 1953 when the CIA, with British assistance, brought down the popular prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced with him with the autocratic rule of the Shah. That led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and a regime that openly aims to wipe Israel off the map.
