The Saudis are Sunnis, the Iranians are Shiites, and long before modern borders were drawn, the Arabs and Persians were rivals, along with the Ottomans, for regional hegemony and sought to control the territory that now makes up Iraq.
The first assumes that China, as a great power, is likely to pursue regional hegemony and seek to establish a sphere of influence over its immediate neighbors, which might conceivably include Southeast Asia and Central Asia.
It was seeking hegemony in Syria and Lebanon, and was well along in its clandestine program to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Zarif accused Washington of using the conference to revive hysteria against Iran, and denied that Tehran was seeking hegemony in the Middle East.
14 March leaders have been strong supporters of the uprising against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, whom they accuse of seeking hegemony over Lebanon directly and through Hezbollah and Iran.
This oddly enough conforms with Prince Souvanna's view that the North Vietnamese are seeking hegemony over all Indochina, another way of say ing that the fighting in Viet nam, Laos and Cambodia has become all part of one war.
"The Iranian nation will not initiate an attack because we believe that seeking hegemony is as bad as accepting it," said the supreme leader, whose powers include that of commander in chief of the armed forces.
Long before most others, Rabin understood the threat from Iran seeking hegemony over the Middle East.
A crumpled picture of the man himself, and a commemorative plaque reminding everyone to be good communists by "digging deep tunnels, storing more food, not seeking hegemony".
Soviet leaders are described as "avidly" seeking hegemony, "infected with the imperialistic sickness of which they accused others". They are "all aggressive, all hawks with respect to the final goals of their policy". They are also ruthless.
Rather, they argue that despite the admittedly worrying Chinese military buildup in general and in the South China Sea in particular, together with its assertive claims to small islands also claimed by other Asian states, Chinese behavior is best understood as motivated not by the grandiose policy of seeking "hegemony" over the region, but by more limited goals.
