Iran joins Russia and China in new Asian NATO

By Aussiegirl

The geo-political chess game just got more interesting. If the U.S. hoped that China and Russia would pressure Iran into agreeing to give up its offensive nuclear program, I think this may signal the end of those hopes. Of course, China and Russia will talk a big game to U. S. officials behind the scenes. They will reassure everyone that they are merely trying to engage Iran in order to be able to exert a greater positive influence, while all the time working to undermine the West and aggregate more military, economic and strategic power to themselves.

Are we witnessing the start of a new Cold War? Stay tuned -- things are getting mighty interesting.

Iran welcome in China's new sphere News The Australian: "IRAN'S controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is flying to Shanghai tomorrow to take part in a summit that will seal China's plans to lead an Asian rival to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation - whose meeting has forced the shutdown of much of the city this week - is celebrating its fifth anniversary, and is preparing to expand its membership well beyond the present China, Russia and four strategic central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan"

[...]Other leaders who will attend the summit include the presidents of Pakistan and Mongolia - formal observer states, like Iran and India - and Afghanistan.

Most of the members share a huge potential - and, in China's case, an appetite - for increased energy production. India is sending its Oil and Gas Minister.

In the past, they have also shared a focus on combating Islamist terror. But Iran's participation in this summit and its eagerness to become a full member appear to point the organisation in a different direction: a corral of countries capable of countering Western influence.

[...]Last week SCO secretary-general Zhang Deguang told journalists in Beijing, when questioned about the participation of Iran: "We cannot abide other countries calling our observer nations sponsors of terror. We would not have invited them if we believed they sponsored terror."

The SCO's charter speaks of creating "a new international political and economic order".

David Wall, a research associate for Cambridge University's East Asia Institute, wrote recently in The Japan Times that the SCO states' "only common denominators are a communist past or present, and autocratic to ruthless dictatorial governments". He said it had become "an important multilateral institution of global geopolitical significance".