The entire Middle East got a warm fuzzy this week when leaders of Iran and Syria, two of the many points on President Bush’s “Pinwheel of Evil,” announced to everyone they were “best friends.” Any attempt to attack one, the united leaders warned, would mean an attack on the other.
The announcement came shortly before a promise by Israel to “kick ass and take names” in Syria if the bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub on Saturday could be traced back to the country. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held a finger purposefully in the air for a moment, with the pledge that, “Seriously, we are no longer fucking around with you guys.”
On Saturday morning, however, before the news of the night club bombing (Great White have so far not been implicated), Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari and Iranian President Mohammad “Oh, Mammy” Khatami stood together, arms around each other’s shoulders, and announced to a crowd their nations were “best friends.”
“Make no mistake: We love these fuckers,” said Khatami, shaking buddy al-Otari quite forcefully. “Anyone raises their hand to strike my brother, it will quite honestly be the opening of a great can of whup-ass. I cannot wait to pound on the infidel who would come between myself and my bro Huge Naj. Or, for that matter, between any member of our country and theirs. The same goes true for us all, on both sides of the border.”
“That’s right,” affirmed al-Otari. “No one puts a hurting on this bitch but me.” The two party leaders then engaged in playful shoving on the platform, as the crowd of Syrian and Iranian nationals cheered them on and blew raspberries.
The thinly-veiled threat of retaliation against any country who strikes one or the other worried some analysts, who had been much more at ease with the notions of larger, more well-armed nations batting around the individual nations of Syria or Iran like flies. Together, the two pose a slightly greater threat, like batting around a flying pig or some airborne equivalent, but others reason that it remains to be seen whether the proclamation of friendship is so much talk.
Pentagon Defense Strategist Michael Compt elaborated for the commune.
“As an historian on the alliances of rogue nations,” said Compt, “I can only wonder: What the hell were the voters on American Idol thinking when they kicked off Jennifer Hudson? However, this has nothing to do with my field of expertise. So I instead illustrate with historical examples how claims of unified fronts between countries have seldom stood up to real tests. One that comes to mind quickly, was the ‘friendship to beat all’ Cambodia had with Vietnam. True, both countries ended up going to war with the United States, but only after Cambodia loudly declared Vietnam has misrepresented its intentions.”
For other examples, Compt also cited the “private club” effect when Germany, Italy, and Japan formed their original Axis powers, only to have the alliance fall apart quickly when the group eventually broke up over creative differences. Other noteworthy failed enterprises included when the Soviet Union declared China its “soul mate,” only to have the two break up years later, when the Soviets accused the Chinese of being incapable of love.
“It’s one thing if a country says it has your back in a fight when things are all Jim Dandy,” said Compt, doing a little two-step with his feet to punctuate his point, “but really stick with each other through thick and thin, that’s a hard thing to find. It’s not the same thing as when two countries are really meant to be together, like East and West Germany. Sure, they have the occasional fight—but what they got, that’s true nationalism.”