libertybelle diaries

Here’s another ME expert, Hillary Mann Leverett, a former diplomat who served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, whose views on the Muslim world and problems in the ME may help explain why our foreign policy lacks any coherence or common sense.  This expert, during an MSNBC appearance Monday,  claimed Iran’s theocracy is a political experiment as profound as the United States and even goes on to compare the Ayatollah with a Supreme Court Justice.   Andrew Johnson at National Review quotes Leverett:

”It’s a very interesting system,” she said. “It’s, again, been caricatured in the United States for so long as this kind of crazed Islamist dictatorship when, in fact, it’s a political experiment, I think, as profound as perhaps the American system or the French system, trying to fuse Islamism with participatory politics.” “Ayatollah Khamenei is in a sense like our Supreme Court justice: He has the final say, but he also does that not just in a legal way, but in a political way,” Leverett continued. “Underneath him, there are very much empowered parts of the system, not just a president but parliament, armed forces, just like the way our Pentagon often has a say, both in terms of budget and policy, theirs does too.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/416231/former-diplomat-iranian-and-americans-governments-are-similar-political-experiments