While Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are marketing their authoritarian rules as alternatives to a “moribund” Western democratic system, the Khomeinist mullahs in Tehran are also throwing their hat, sorry turban, into the ring as contenders for leading a New World Order.
An early version of the mullahs’ bid came almost 30 years ago, when Hojat al-Islam Muhammad Khatami suggested that, by separating religion from politics, the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe had created a world order that fomented wars, slavery and colonialism. The way to salvation was to restore religious control of politics by granting theologians a role in the leadership.
