Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A China base in Iran?

atimes.com

In the aftermath of President George W Bush's recent tour of the Persian Gulf, coinciding with a similar trip by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, culminating in a deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a small French base, Iran's security calculus has changed. It has almost reached the point of Tehran considering the option of reciprocating the perceived excess Western intrusion into its vicinity by allowing a military base for China at one of Iran's Persian Gulf ports or on one of its islands.

Without doubt, this would be a significant geopolitical move on both Iran's and China's part, bound to unsettle the US superpower that enjoys unrivalled hegemony in the oil region and which has unsettled China with its recent civilian nuclear agreement with India, widely interpreted as a long-term "containing China" initiative........

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