Hundreds of thousands of Iranians demonstrated Monday to mark the 40th anniversary of the country’s Islamic Revolution. Some of the protesters burned U.S. flags. Others carried pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shi’ite religious leader whose return from exile led to the ouster of Iran’s Shah. On February 11, 1979, Iran’s army declared its neutrality in the dispute between the two sides. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family were forced to flee the country. On Monday, Iranian state television broadcast images of people carrying Iranian flags and standing out in cold, rainy weather. Some demonstrators shouted “Death to Israel, Death to America;” sayings often repeated at the time of the revolution. The Shah was the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East. One sign read, “Much to the dismay of America, the revolution has reached its 40th year.”