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At a time when the American-British enterprise [politicians-media-intelligence] targets Iran, the PakNationalists forum, the meeting point of the Pakistani nationalist movement, publishes this special tribute to Iran and its people, exclusively written by a veteran Pakistani diplomat and a former ambassador to Beijing and Washington, Mr. Akram Zaki. Here is a unique and informed take on Iran's system of government. It shows how a few people at the top in Tehran revived the pride of a demoralized nation. Reading this will also provide perspective to the intense Am-Brit anti-Iran campaign. By M. AKRAM ZAKI Wednesday, 17 June 2009. TEHRAN, Iran—It is a great honor for me to be invited to the brotherly Islamic country, Iran which is so close to my heart and which is loved and respected by the people of Pakistan. Iran and Pakistan are bound together by geography, culture, shared history and common faith. They also have a common destiny to live in freedom, with honor and dig...

ANALYSIS / By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent Any early bets about the results of Iran's presidential elections bordered on stupidity. Israeli intelligence can predict with certainty only the results of election campaigns in the pseudo-democracies of the Arab world, such as Egypt and Syria, in which the ruler will never drop below a threshold of 99 percent of the voters. When it comes to countries or entities in which the process is closer to genuine democracy, there is a greater chance for forecasts to fail. That is what happened under Israel's nose during the Palestinian Authority parliamentary election three and a half years ago, when the intelligence community did not foresee the victory of Hamas (the Shin Bet security service cunningly covered itself in advance with a prediction of "both this and that"). That is probably what happened at the beginning of last week, when Israeli intelligence - like every other pundit in the region - did ...