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Axis Of Resistance Round-Up
Busy goings-on on the Iran-Venezuela axis. The African "third wheel", Robert Mugabe, is also in the news today, apparently plotting to push parliament to allow him to name his successor without putting it to the vote (shades of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair?).
The Guardian has a look at what the Marxist radical Hugo Chavez sees in Holocaust-denying fundamentalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It's oil, for a start, and dislike of the US. How the creeping friendship between the two will play with Chavez's many admirers on the left in the west remains to be seen... is it really decent for London's theatre luvvies to cheer a man whose closest international ally leads a country where homosexuals are executed and women beaten for not dressing in a properly Islamist fashion?
Meanwhile, a blogger on Salon (yes, it's still going) posts a scathing attack on Chavez's unwillingness to answer criticism, even from his supporters.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, US and Iranian officials had another get-together. It is fair to say that the two nations have a lot to discuss, and Iran's nuclear programme was high on the agenda.
Iran chilled some observers by threatening to take "illegal action" if it receives more sanctions for its programme: This is taken to mean it will pull out of the non-proliferation treaty. However, it did indicate that it would provide UN observers with a full account of its nuclear work.
Tehran now says it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon because Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei, "had issued a religious fatwa against possessing the bomb."
"We can exit from the non-proliferation treaty, but we can never exit from a fatwa," said an official.
