Now, as far as I was aware, Sistani does not agree with Khomeini's doctrine on the rule of the Jurisprudents, and that appears to be a position that he shared with his predecessors. He is not interested in leading a political movement (unlike Sadr), and he has been consistent in demanding more democratic (even secular liberal) government practices such as when he insisted (and gained that as a concession from the US) that the Iraqi Constitution be approved in referendum.
Other than that, I'm out of my depth. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
A few examples of many:
From what I've read, Iraqi domestic politics are just as byzantine. It becomes so pervasive, people actually do engage in conspiracies preemptivly, since they're convinced everyone around them must also be conspiring. This creates a vicious cycle of conspiracies that takes on a reality all its own.
Why not deploy some of Europe's soft power to debunk the more fantastic of these, with long-term goal of breaking the vicious cycle, while avoiding controversial issues like Colonialism, Palestine and Geopolitics in general? __ I am the most conservative Unitarian-Universalist you will ever meet.
You seem to misunderstand the reason that people create conspiracy theories.
To take an example, there is no obvious rational reason for the invasion of Iraq, and people like simple stories, so they make up the one that seems simplest to them: Iraq was invaded so the US could take the oil (with a side order of mendacity by whoever you happen not to like).
That the Iraqi invasion was the result of a collection of forces acting in their own perceive short-term interests in such a way that it became possible for the Bush regime to invade Iraq without any great overarching conspiracy is more complicated to explain than the "simple" conspiracies. On top of that, an analysis of the reasons for the Iraq war would be less than flattering to an awful lot of players in Iraq, the US, the Middle East and Europe. I'm not sure that explaining that Iraq was, in part, invaded because it meant that arms manufacturers would make more profits is going to have a positive effect on the Iraqi zeitgeist.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
