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Ayatollah Khamenei urges Iran to prepare for 'new world order'

Iran’s supreme leader has said that Western influence in the world is waning and Iran must “prepare ourselves to play a role” in the new order that emerges.

Iraqi women walk past a poster depicting images of Shi'ite Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at al-Firdous Square in Baghdad February 12, 2014. An Iraqi daily newspaper stopped publishing after two bombs were planted in the entrance to its headquarters in Baghdad on Monday and after threats from an Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia. Editors and reporters at Assabah AlJadeed said they had received death threats from the influential Asaib al-Haq militia in response to what it had described as an "insu
Iraqi women walk past a poster depicting images of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Baghdad, Feb. 12, 2014. — REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

In a meeting with the Assembly of Experts, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the world is entering a “new order” as the West's influence wanes and that officials in the Islamic Republic need to be aware of the changes and prepare to play a role in the new context.

After World War II, Western countries took over the management of the world, especially in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, said Ayatollah Khamenei. They did this by promoting a specific type of cultural values and using military and political might. Khamenei said that both of these types of power have been challenged and are now uncertain.

Ayatollah Khamenei said that this “order was in the process of change,” and “When the world is changing, when global order is changing and a new order is being formed, naturally we have a more important duty.”

The first thing to be done is to understand the new world order correctly, Khamenei said. “The power of the West on their two foundations — values and thoughts and the political and military — have become shaky. We have to understand this” rather than submitting to the idea of Western superiority.

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