According to that mindset the Iranian regime is the only "divinely guided" government in the world, all others being in the hands of deviant Muslims or outright infidels. The present world order is a concoction of "Zionists and Crusaders" and is sustained by military force, propaganda and economic domination. The fall of the Soviet Union removed the only serious challenger to this despicable order. The Islamic Republic in Iran has the duty to fill that gap by assuming the role of challenger. Its aim should be a new Islamic world order. And that, in turn, requires the end of American domination. A key step in that direction is the destruction of the United States' principal "bridgehead in the heart of Islam"—that is to say Israel.

As far as the Islamic Republic is concerned, anti-Americanism may be even more important than professing Islam. This is why Tehran has forged close ties with the handful of regimes across the globe that, each for a reason of its own, shares that visceral hatred of the US. Apart from North Korea, an ally of the Islamic Republic since the early days, several leftist regimes in Latin America, notably Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador look to Tehran as a source of inspiration for their own anti-American policies. It was with their help that Iran hosted the summit of the non-aligned movement in 2012, at which President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad was elected as the leader of the club for the next three years.

Anti-Americanism is also the principal reason behind Tehran's support for the Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad. Assad belongs to the Nusairi community, an esoteric sect regarded as heretical by both Shia and Sunni Islam. And yet the Iranian government has managed to obtain fatwas from two clerics describing the Nusairis as "believers". In other words, even infidels can be regarded as believers, provided they share the Islamic Republic's hatred of the US. Latin America's leftist regimes and Syria account for more than 80 per cent of the Islamic Republic's investments abroad. In the dispute over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran supported Christian Armenia against Shia Muslim Azerbaijan. The reason was Armenia's close ties with Russia, while Azerbaijan had become an ally of the US and established full diplomatic ties with Israel. What mattered for the Khomeinist regime was not Islam but anti-Americanism. Tehran also approved Russia's genocidal war against Chechnya, a Muslim nation in the Caucasus. Again, the reason was Tehran's dream of building an anti-American axis with Moscow. A decade later, Russia tried to repay its debt to Iran by supporting the Islamic Republic's efforts to save the Assad regime in Syria by massacring the Syrian people.