"Khomeini believed "imperialists" – British and then American – had 300-year-long "elaborate plans for assuming control of" the East, the purpose of which was "to keep us backward, to keep us in our present miserable state so they can exploit our riches, our underground wealth, our lands and our human resources.They want us to remain afflicted and wretched, and our poor to be trapped in their misery ... " 
One complaint of this approach by critics is that these "conspiracy theor[ies]" revolving around the "ready-to-wear devil" of the West are "currently paralyzing Muslim political thought.