Here is a great editorial about Sistani in Iraq deserving a Nobel Prize, which I agree.
But, in it there was this paragraph that meade me thing of our own local elections here in peaceful Oshkosh....
"Sistani did not build his politics on negating someone else." Saddam Hussein built his politics around negating America, Iran and Israel. Arafat built his whole life around negating Zionism - rarely, if ever, speaking about Palestinian economic development or education. The politics of negation has a deep and rich history in the Middle East, because so many leaders there are illegitimate and need to negate someone to justify their rule. What Mr. Sistani, the late Lebanese Sunni leader Rafik Hariri and the new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all have in common is that they rose to power by focusing on a positive agenda for their own people, not negating another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/opinion/20friedman.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=
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