“I Am the State”: When Nations Are Reduced to Men

One of the most famous phrases in political history is attributed to Louis XIV of France, the “Sun King”: “L’État, c’est moi,” or “I am the state.” Although historians doubt that he ever uttered those exact words, the phrase endured because it captured an entire philosophy of government: the ruler and the state become two images of the same reality, opposition to his decisions becomes opposition to the nation, and the strength of institutions is measured by the degree of their submission to his will.

France’s problem under Louis XIV was not that its king was weak. On the contrary, France was one of Europe’s greatest powers, and its monarch one of the most powerful rulers of his age. Yet the strength of the state became increasingly tied to centralized decision-making and the person of the king, while wars, expenditure, social inequalities and imbalances in public finances accumulated costs that later generations would have to bear.

France did not collapse after Louis XIV’s death in 1715. The monarchy survived for more than seven decades before the French Revolution erupted in 1789. That interval matters because it prevents a superficial reading of history: the personalization of the state does not necessarily lead to immediate collapse, but it may gradually weaken its ability to reform itself through its own institutions.

Then came the greater paradox. The revolution that overthrew the Old Regime did not lead to peaceful institutional stability, but to years of turmoil, wars and upheaval, culminating in the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was crowned emperor in 1804.

Napoleon was therefore not the “savior” who ended the crisis of personal rule. From another perspective, he demonstrated that the collapse of a highly personalized regime does not necessarily produce stronger institutions. It may instead open the way for an even more powerful man.

Here lies the danger illustrated by the French experience: when institutions fail to reform themselves, the state may move from one form of personalization to another, from a powerful king to a revolution, and from the revolution to an emperor.

More than three centuries later, this question seems relevant once again, albeit in radically different systems: what happens when the fate of a ruler and his political project becomes part of the very definition of the state’s fate?

Three cases deserve consideration: the United States under Donald Trump, Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iran under Mojtaba Khamenei.

America: Where Does the State End and Trump Begin?

The American system cannot be compared to the monarchy of Louis XIV. The United States is a federal constitutional state with established institutions, separation of powers, courts, Congress, states, the media, civil society and regular elections.

Yet Donald Trump’s experience has brought a fundamental question back to the center of American debate: the limits of presidential power and the ability of institutions to constrain it.

The issue is not whether a president is powerful. The American system itself grants the president extensive powers. The problem begins when loyalty to the president becomes, for part of society and the political elite, something close to a measure of loyalty to the national project itself, and when disagreements over institutions, the judiciary, the administration and foreign policy cease to be disputes about how the state should be governed and become a struggle over who truly represents America.

The slogan “America First” then faces a delicate test: does America remain first, or does the man who carries the slogan become inseparable from its definition?

The danger for the United States is not that it will turn into an absolute monarchy tomorrow. That would be an unrealistic simplification. The danger is that polarization and personalization may weaken the norms and institutions that have enabled the system, throughout its history, to outlast its presidents.

Israel: The State, War and Netanyahu’s Future

In Israel, the relationship between the man and the state appears more complex.

Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer simply one prime minister in a succession of prime ministers. His long presence at the center of political life has made his person a major axis of Israel’s divisions: elections, the judiciary, war, security, foreign relations and the future of political coalitions.

The problem emerges when the interests of the state, the interests of the government and the political and personal interests of the man intersect.

The longer this overlap continues, the harder it becomes to distinguish among them.

Is a military decision necessary for Israel’s security? Is it necessary for the government’s survival? Does it serve Netanyahu’s political future? These three interests may sometimes coincide, but they do not necessarily do so at all times.

The danger begins when the question of Netanyahu’s future becomes part of the question of Israel’s future itself.

A state that reaches this point has not become a monarchy, but it has entered a situation in which politics is tied to a person more closely than it should be.

Iran: From the Revolution Against the Shah to the Question of Heredity

Iran presents the clearest paradox.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was, in one of its essential dimensions, a revolt against a hereditary monarchy in which power was centered on the shah.

Nearly half a century later, Mojtaba Khamenei has assumed the position of supreme leader, which his father, Ali Khamenei, held for decades.

Regardless of the constitutional and institutional mechanisms that governed his selection, the transfer of power at the highest level from father to son raises a symbolic and political question that the Islamic Republic cannot ignore: how can a system founded on a revolution against monarchy explain the transfer of the center of power between two generations of the same family?

But the issue extends beyond the Khamenei family. The deeper question is whether Iran, as a state, civilization and society, has become too closely tied to the survival of the regime, and whether the regime itself has become too dependent on the survival of a particular structure of religious and security institutions, families and personalities.

Here, three things that are often conflated in political discourse must be distinguished: Iran is not the Islamic Republic, the Islamic Republic is not the supreme leader, and the supreme leader is not Iran.

The more the boundaries between these levels weaken, the closer the system comes to the dilemma of “I am the state.”

This Is Not a Comparison of Three Political Systems

It would be wrong to place the United States, Israel and Iran in the same political category.

The first is a federal constitutional democracy, the second an electoral parliamentary system, and the third an Islamic republic based on the rule of the jurist, or wilayat al-faqih, and a complex mixture of elected and unelected institutions.

The comparison here is not between the nature of these systems, but between manifestations of a phenomenon that can affect different systems: the personalization of power.

The same political pathology may appear through different symptoms.

In one system, it appears through the expansion of executive powers.

In another, through the linking of war and security to the future of a government and its leader.

In a third, through the concentration of legitimacy and strategic decision-making at the summit of a highly centralized political and religious hierarchy.

But the question remains the same: do institutions constrain the ruler, or does the ruler reshape institutions around himself?

France’s Lesson Is Not About Louis XIV Alone

This is where the French lesson becomes more interesting.

If the story had ended with Louis XIV, the lesson would have been simple: an absolute ruler weakens institutions, and then the state collapses.

But history did not unfold that way.

Louis XIV died, and France remained. The monarchy continued. Decades later, the revolution came and overthrew the Old Regime in the name of liberty, equality and popular sovereignty. Yet the revolution itself did not produce immediate stability.

France entered a vortex of conflicts, upheavals, violence and wars before Napoleon emerged.

And here lies the paradox: the French emerged from a monarchy centered on the person of the king and, after an immense revolution, ended up with an emperor around whom the state was centered once again…

The man had changed.

The legitimacy had changed.

The institutions had changed.

Even the political language had changed.

But the need for a strong man had returned in another form.

For this reason, Napoleon should not be read as the “savior of France” from the legacy of Louis XIV, but as an additional warning: when institutions fail to produce rational reform, the alternative may not be better institutions, but a more powerful personality.

From Louis to Napoleon

Perhaps this is the real question facing America, Israel and Iran.

The problem is not only Trump, Netanyahu or Khamenei.

Like all rulers, they will one day leave power.

The question is what they will leave behind.

If institutions are stronger after their departure, the state will have passed the test.

But if institutions have become weaker, society more divided and the system more dependent on a single personality, the most dangerous phase may then begin.

For societies that lose faith in institutions do not always seek better institutions.

Sometimes, they seek a stronger man.

This is precisely what makes Napoleon an essential part of the story.

The danger of “I am the state” does not necessarily end with the fall of the man who embodies it.

One man may fall, only for another to come after him and say the same thing in different language.

Before Searching for a New Napoleon

What the United States, Israel and Iran need, therefore, is not a “savior,” but, each according to its own system and circumstances, a return to political reason before the shock.

A return that restores the standing of institutions, reestablishes the distinction between the interests of the state and those of the ruler, and allows the political system to correct itself before change becomes impossible from within.

In the United States, America must remain greater than Trump.

In Israel, the future of the state must be greater than Netanyahu’s political future.

In Iran, Iran, with its history, society and interests, must remain greater than the Islamic Republic, the Khamenei family and any supreme leader.

For the true test of a state is not how much power a ruler can gather into his own hands.

It is how much power remains in its institutions when he leaves.

Another phrase is attributed to Louis XIV near the end of his life, one that may be even more important than “I am the state”: “I am departing, but the state will always remain.”

Perhaps the distance between these two phrases encapsulates everything these three countries need to consider today.

The first is the logic of the ruler who sees the state through himself: “I am the state.”

The second is the beginning of political wisdom: “I depart, the state remains.”

But the French experience added a third warning between them, one that Louis XIV never uttered: if institutions are unable to survive the man, what follows may not be a stronger system… but a stronger man.