Monday, August 08, 2005

United

Middle Eastern leaders may be coming together after all:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received his Syrian counterpart Sunday, the first head of state to pay an official visit to the newly-inaugurated Iranian leader, and reiterated that the two countries should unite against their opponents...

"Common threats deserve the formation of a united front by Iran and Syria more than ever," Ahmadinejad said at a joint news conference with Assad. "Boosting relations could protect the region from the threats."

The Iranian leader did not identify the source of the threats but, in a commentary on the visit, Iranian state television said: "Co-operation between the two countries is important because the United States and Israel have invaded the region."

Coming on the heels of Iran's decision to restart uranium conversion, this highlights the fact that potential U.S. targets see the need to circle the wagons. And there's no particular cost to doing so, since both countries were already under sanctions in any event (though even stronger ones may be put on Iran).

The end result is that there will be little interaction between these states and the West, and thus no progress toward more open societies. So much for the great democratization project.

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