Be careful of what you wish for

[ShadowHM]

I think he was referring to the reactionary Muslim movement, but I may have read my own thoughts into his post.

Actually, that was my knee-jerk reaction as well.

I wanted to point out that there are many other reasons why there are problems in that area of the world, the least of which is the fairly recent resurgence of fundamentalism in political life there.

Mea culpa, I did not take much time with the post, tumbling into the same mire of lack of research that I believed Mr. Spectre was stuck in.

Thanks for the more measured and factual post you did give him.

Edit:

I do think you are underestimating one thing, though. The need for extreme measures to make changes in a country, when the rest of the world is supportive of the regime leads directly to extremism in more than just the determinination to oust the miscreants.

The Taliban works as an example there - the sheer bloody-minded determination it took to get the Russians out of Afghanistan led to the same kind of tactics being used to ensure that the leaders' view of the world being imposed on the country afterwards.

In Iran, the Shah was happily supported by the rest of the world for a long time, despite his known excesses in human rights. It took extremists to get rid of him. Why are we surprised that those extremists then imposed their view of the world onto the country afterwards? And that they turned a somewhat jaundiced eye on those who had propped the Shah for so long, rejecting everything that they represented, the good and the bad?