For oil-rich Iran, friends are not proving hard to find

By Anna Fifield in Tehran

Published: May 27 2008 19:56 | Last updated: May 27 2008 19:56

Just weeks after Jakarta became the only United Nations security council member to abstain from the latest resolution on Tehran’s nuclear programme, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad (below right) feted his Indonesian counterpart as his “brother”.

“We will take actions to create international peace,” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s visit to Tehran in March.

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US is unwise to deny Iran’s key role in Gulf

By Ethan Chorin

Published: May 27 2008 18:39 | Last updated: May 27 2008 18:39

Over lunch last week in the United Arab Emirates, a friend from the emirate of Sharjah raised Senator Hillary Clinton’s proposal to extend a US “nuclear shield” over allies in the Gulf. “A shield?” he exclaimed. “To protect us against whom, the Iranians or the Americans?” I heard the same sentiment a few days later in Dubai, at the preview for a bustling auction of Iranian art.

These comments, and many others, highlight the swiftly growing gap between the way the Arab Gulf states view their relationship with Iran, and the way the US believes – or wants to believe – they see their neighbour to the north. The US seeks to defend the Arabs from Iran, but they are increasingly trying to defend themselves from US efforts to defend them against Iran. It is hard to imagine how this might turn out well.