All around the world, religious fundamentalist and religious nationalists often have more in common with each other — despite their religious differences — than they do with their fellow adherents. This was recently demonstrated by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he tried to claim that the Mahdi, the twelfth imam of Shiite Islam, was directly involved with guiding the nation of Iran.

Such religious, nationalist rhetoric sounds remarkably like that employed by Christian Nationalists who say that God "blesses" America and that God is guiding America's future. As interesting as that is, it's hardly the beginning. Ahmadinejad was actually rebuked by leading clerics who said that he should stick to secular matters and leave religious issues to them. When was the last time leading, conservative Christians in America said anything like that?

"The Imam Mahdi is in charge of the world and we see his hand directing all the affairs of the country," he said in the speech, which appears to date from last month but has only now been broadcast. "We must solve Iran's internal problems as quickly as possible. Time is lacking. A movement has started for us to occupy ourselves with our global responsibilities, which are arriving with great speed."

Source: Breitbart

Ahmadinejad's words here are consistent with things he's said before. Ever since becoming president, he's repeatedly referenced the idea Iran's actions are setting up the return of the Mahdi, a messianic figure in Muslim theology. The return of the Mahdi is treated a lot like the second coming of Christ, so what Ahmadinejad said is analogous to a Christian saying that America's or Israel's actions are helping pave the way for Jesus' return.

Two leading clerics retorted that Ahmadinejad would be better off concentrating on Iran's social problems -- most notably its double-digit inflation -- than indulging in such mystical rhetoric. "If Ahmadinejad wants to say that the hidden imam is supporting the decisions of the government, it is not true," sniped Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghadam, the spokesman of the conservative Association of Combatant Clerics. "For sure, the hidden imam does not approve of inflation of 20 percent, the high cost of living and numerous other errors," he said, according to the Kargozaran daily.

Ali Asghari, a member of the conservative Hezbollah faction in parliament, told the president not to link the management of the country to the imam. "Ahmadinejad would do better to worry about social problems like inflation ... and other terrestrial affairs," Etemad Melli daily quoted him as saying.

Iran is a country of interesting contradictions, at least where politics are concerned. Iran is a democracy in that the people vote, but it isn't very democratic in that they are only given candidates approved of by leading clerics. That sounds more like a theocracy than a democracy, helping demonstrate that both exist in degrees rather than absolutes. America has a similar problem, in that only candidates who profess the correct and expected religious beliefs have any chance of winning.

So Iran is more than a little bit theocratic, but at the same time there is a sort of separation of church and state as well. Religious leaders have the authority to make certain political decisions (like who can appear on the election ballots), but these same religious leaders reject any attempts by political leaders to link religion with politics. This sounds remarkably like the sort of "church/state separation" which Christian Nationalists want for America: protection for religion and churches from interference from political leaders, but freedom for religious leaders to interfere in politics and government at will.

These parallels are worth thinking about when examining the animosity for Iran among conservative Christians in America. How much of themselves do these Christians see in Iran and Iran's clerics? How much of their animosity is driven by the realization, even if unconscious, that Iran is a living example of what might happen to America if they had their way?