" the Turks, Iranians, Russians, Chinese, and the Sunni caliphs—the five powers bent on revising the international order and preparing to show their hand (each at its own pace) in challenge to the United States and Europe, have the distinctive characteristic of being custodians of the most legendary examples of empire and of being, right up to the present, passionately inhabited by this imperial memory. "

― Bernard-Henri Lévy , The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World