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    lution was over, those same "freedom fighters" tossed aside the

    idea that other countries also deserved to be free from foreign control.

    At Iran's Congress of Muslim Critics of the Constitution, shortly after

    the Revolution, one faction argued that "Islam knows no borders," and

    passionately insisted on the eventual creation of a unified state of all

    Moslem nations.  Who would hold the reins of this massive new

    superstate, directing it with a leaden grip?  The Iranians, of course.

    Another august debater ridiculed the idea of self-determination

    for other countries.  This speaker attacked the proposition that Iran

    "would neither permit itself to be dominated nor seek to dominate

    others."  Islamic governments, he declared, had a duty to spread Islam.

    "Islamic culture and knowledge," he added, "are by nature

    domineering."199  As a result, the preamble of the Iranian constitution

    established under the Ayatollah refers to the "ideological mission of the

    army and the revolutionary guard to extend the sovereignty of Allah's

    law throughout the world."

    In other words, the day of peace would come only when we

    heathens have fallen to our knees and embraced the true faith,

    allowing ourselves to be tucked into the nether regions of a global

    Islamic order.  This is a classic case of a meme driving a superorganism

    to expand.

    The Iranians took their responsibility to conquer the world

    seriously.  They called for the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein,

    and dreamed of turning Iraq into an Iranian satellite.  When 100,000

    had been killed in the Iraq-Iran War and two million had been turned

    to refugees, the Iranians refused to discuss peace.  They were

    determined to fight until Hussein gave way to a "revolutionary" leader

    under the Ayatollah's thumb.200  By the time the Iran-Iraq War finally

    entered a ceasefire in August of 1988, the conflict had killed a

    million.201

    The Iranians stirred up revolutionary movements in the nations

    of the Persian Gulf.  They became a major force in Lebanon, where they

    exerted considerable influence over the country's violence-prone Shiite

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