How has the Shiite religion affected the character of [Iran]?
… The interesting thing about Shiite Islam is that it’s founded on debate and disagreement. We in the West have this image of Iranian clerics, starting with Ayatollah Khomeini, as being stern and rigid and never bending. But indeed, the nature of the religion is to question your elders, question your superiors, and constantly debate and argue. That’s why when you go to a country like Iran, you realize everybody wants to argue with you all the time. They think it’s fun. We think it’s sort of difficult and hard to be talking politics all the time, but for them, it’s really what gives them life and vitality and vibrancy. … So Shiism is almost an adjunct to the democratic movement. Oh, no question about it. Shiism is part of the democratization and the reform movement in Iran. And I argue, for example, that the holy city of Qom, that the clerical establishment, the sort of Vatican of Iran, is the most dangerous place in Iran, because there are seminaries there where students are taught
