Saturday March 4, 2007

I've Been Thinking:

Ahmadinejad is visiting Saudi Arabia today.
Ahmadinejad visiting Saudi Arabia is about as strange as an official representative of the United States on an official visit to Iran.

There is no love lost between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Sunnis and Iran is the leader of the Shiites. They are arch enemies, they hate one another.
The meeting took months to coordinate. So why are they meeting?

There are 3 reasons:
# 1: The violence in Iraq is taking a toll on both Iran and Saudi Arabia.
# 2: Pressure from the United States about the Iranian nuclear program is forcing Iran to search for mediators and Saudi Arabia is the perfect mediator.
# 3: Iran needs to show interest in the greater goal of Muslim unity, not just the Shiite agenda and reaching out to Saudi Arabia is the perfect way to show interest.

Fences will not be mended, but this is certainly a scenario worth watching.