The public commentator Reza Aslan recently announced on Twitter that “Iran currently has the highest number of US college alums serving in any foreign government cabinet in the world” and appended a sleek graphic illustration. In light of Aslan’s general position on U.S.-Iranian relations, his message is clear: the Iranian government is populated by congenial, well-educated “reonciliationists” who are eager to establish good relations with the U.S. However, writes Armin Rosen, given “the distressingly vast range of despotic and otherwise anti-Western figures [who] were educated in the United States or Europe,” Aslan has only succeeded in disproving his underlying assumption:
Exposure to the democratic world is no guarantee that an individual will develop any kind of sensitivity toward its values or outlook. It can have the exact opposite effect. . . . This is a troubling reality for believers in the idea that the arc of history bends inexorably toward a Western-democratic notion of justice and freedom. Some very smart people have been exposed to the realities of that system up close and have not only found it inadequate but violently rejected it, using their personal experience as the basis for a powerful and often highly resonant critique of Western and American values. They serve as evidence that backlash may be more probable than universal democratic triumph, and that that backlash can originate from the heart of democracy itself.
Read more on Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/does-it-matter-if-irans-leaders-are-us-educated-2014-10