It's the Bush neoconservatives' worst nightmare: Now that their man has failed in everything he has touched, from the costly boondoggle of an illegal war in Iraq and an aimless war in Afghanistan, not to mention disaster-relief services (the Hurricane Katrina fiasco), economic policy (where will the up-to-its-neck-in-debt administration find the $150 billion it's proposing to help boost the ailing economy?) and all-around diplomacy, here comes the news that China might want to set up a military base in Iran, one of the points on Bush's infamous, international "axis of evil."
About that proposed Chinese base in Iran: The governments in Beijing and Tehran have become rather chummy. The state-controlled Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reports that Iran now supplies 13 percent of the crude oil China is mopping up to fuel its booming industrial sector. Iran's ambassador to China this week cited America's current woes and boldly invoked the late Chinese revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, who once famously referred to U.S. power as that of a "paper tiger." Perhaps more ominous for Washington's Iran-watchers is IRNA's news that the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to expand its cooperation with China in its construction of nuclear-power plants.
SFGate: World Views : Neocons' nightmare: A Chinese military base in Iran?