Iran

Before I jump in, today is the spring forward day so spin your clock forward an hour if you are in a daylight savings time zone.

I read this story about Jews in Iran before the Shah got booted in the 70's. I know some Iraqi Jews as well and until I had met them, I never even knew that there were Jews in that part of the world at one time. My point is that the people in Iran were living in a relatively peaceful ethnic/religious plural society at one time in their lifetimes. They were also relatively moderate and dare I say prosperous at one time before the Islamic revolution. I never lived there and I'm not an expert so I don't really know, maybe I'm wrong so let me know if I am missing something.

Back to the point, you have this society of cultured, modern people who went through a radical change in the 70s and isolated themselves from the world who now are looking at other societies in the Middle East and the rest of the world who are doing much better economically and socially than they are. If I was Joe Public there, I would want things to change so it seems logical that Iran would be the next Islamic state to self-liberalize. You can also assume that the CIA is in there already stirring the pot if that was the case. Many Americans are worried that a new Iraqi Shia government will swing in favor of the Iranian Shia fundamentalism. I think that the opposite will be true, the Iraqi Shiites will temper the Iranians and hopefully give the Iranian people the confidence to take control of their own society without first world interference.

Then again what do I know, this is just my impression from the fragments of data that I am exposed to.