Pakistan, Iran become 'natural allies'

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MG19Df02.html

The participation by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in the two-day conference on terrorism held at Tehran on June 25 was invested with political symbolism as a mark of displeasure towards the United States. But Zardari's return to Tehran within three weeks on a second visit on Saturday unmistakably carried the stamp of Pakistan's "strategic defiance" of the US.

Equally, for the second time in three weeks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei received Zardari, signifying the high importance that Tehran attaches to the nascent signs of shift in Pakistan's regional policies.

Saudi Arabia made a diplomatic demarche with Pakistan to dissuade Zardari from attending the Tehran conference in June. For the second time, again, Riyadh made a bid on Friday to convey its apprehensions over the Pakistan-Iran intimacy. Saudi


ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Aziz Al-Ghadeer called on Zardari in Islamabad on the eve of his departure for Tehran.

Evidently, there is growing consternation in Riyadh that a tilt in the "balance of forces" in the Persian Gulf region may ensue if Tehran and Islamabad draw closer together. The Iran-Pakistan solidarity rubbishes the Saudi thesis that the Shi'ite-Sunni schism is the dominant theme of Middle Eastern politics.

[bemildred]

1. Dang, that will keep somebody up nights.

Can we admit now that Iran won the war in Iraq?

[Hawkowl]

2. Irony is a bitch

The tighter the USA grips the Middle East, the more countries that will slip through our fingers. Every man, woman, and child, Obama kills with drones chips away at our national interest, national identity and our very souls. Good job Obama!

[jwirr]

3. Winning hearts and minds, you know.

:sarcasm:

[txlibdem]

4. Obama didn't send in Blackwater to mow down innocents

I'm no fan of Pres. Obama any more but facts are facts.

[Hawkowl]

5. He has renewed and expanded their contracts ...nt

[txlibdem]

6. You mean Xe? He must have put them on a tight leash then... no Rambo killers now

Maybe they're the same company but show me the news reports of the behavior that put them in the headlines. I can't find any.