LONDON: If Iran is forced into an alliance of expediency with Iraq on the basis of the well tried principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, the Bush administration will only have itself to blame.

The prospect of a self-defence pact between these two long-standing Middle East antagonists grows less unlikely as the US, even as it pounds its anti-Saddam war drums, steps up pressure on Tehran.

Washington already maintains economic sanctions on Iran. It opposes the EU’s proposed trade and co-operation pact, has demanded that Russia cut its nuclear power development assistance and is reportedly seeking to penalize eight Chinese companies said to be selling arms to Iran.

The US military build-up in the Gulf and elsewhere in the region looks just as threatening when viewed from Tehran as it does from Baghdad. Iran also gazes with understandable concern at the creation of new US bases in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Yet Washington seems blithely unbothered by the consequences of its actions, notably Iraq’s blossoming efforts to build strategic bridges with its old foe.

The two countries are discussing prisoner exchanges, a hangover from the Iran-Iraq war, and Iraq’s sharp new foreign minister, Naji Sabri, made a ground-breaking goodwill visit to Tehran earlier this year.

President George Bush has perversely encouraged this fence-mending by lumping the two countries together in his notorious “axis of evil”.

Last week, in a little-reported statement, he blundered clumsily on. Denouncing the “uncompromising, destructive policies” of Iran’s clerical leaders, he effectively urged the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow them. That brought a predictably angry response from Iranian moderates and conservatives alike.

By his ill considered meddling, Bush weakens the hand of those who, like Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri, champion internal reform and risks pushing Iran into the arms of America’s arch-enemy in Baghdad.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.