Seen from the West, Iran is a rogue menace. Iran’s leaders, on the other hand, view their country’s mission in heroic terms. “We must not allow those who have dominated the world for 400 years to continue to oppress us and saddle us with their arrogance,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared last year. And then, more recently: “Everyone knows that in today’s world there are just two [powers] that enjoy the strongest influence in the world — the United States and Iran.”
