The Shiites have a classic disagreement going on: the one between the forces of reactionary stupidity, embodied by Khomeini and the structure of Iran, and the forces of reforming orthodoxy, emobodied in Sistani and his leadership in Iraq. This is best explained by Sandro Magister:

The “fault” of the grand ayatollah Sistani – in the eyes of his enemies – is that of being the most authoritative and consistent supporter of a vision of Islamic “quietism,” according to which the master teaches theology, law, and morality, and asks that the principles of Islam be respected in public life, but does not demand political power for himself, nor presumes to exercise coercive control over it.

This current of thought has always been the prevalent one in Najaf. The Iranian ayatollah Khomeini, who lived in this city from 1965 to 1978 and maintained the opposite view, was completely isolated.

Khomeini’s thesis, to which he gave form in 1979 with his theocratic revolution in Iran, was that “only a good society can create good believers.” And he conferred upon the experts of Qur’anic law the political power necessary to engineer the perfect society.

Sistani, on the contrary, maintains that “only good citizens can create a good society.” And he rejects any idea of theocracy.
Emphasis mine.

Sistani is enunciating a view which thoughtful people across history have come to, implicit in Plato and Aristotle, explicit in much philosophy since, enunciated directly by the American founders (who nonetheless set up as many traps as possible to prevent untrammeled action by the government). With that point of view, Islam becomes something that is approachable, something that might become worth understanding, as opposed to merely the latest incarnation of the death-cult that it has shown itself so spectacularly to be capable of.

This sort of thing takes place in countries strongly influenced by Arabic Islam, without region wide campaigns against it, or serious governmental campaigns to abolish it.

A devout Muslim, Abu Moghaseb said that he has mixed feelings about the practice of honor killing and seemed to be working through his rationale while we talked. "If a woman works as a prostitute, she must be killed," he reasoned. "It will spread diseases." Still, he went on, "Our religion says not to kill," and then after another moment: "But our tradition says to kill."

And it is this fault: that the religion accepts tradition, rather than molding it into a religious form, that will doom Islam to a minority status in the West.

Hat tip to erudidto