India-Iran Bizarro World: Now, Israel plays India, Iran plays Pakistan, and India plays US

Following the Iran-Israel-India-US debacle over oil payments and Monday's bomb blast in New Delhi?  Welcome to the foreign policy equivalent of Superman's Bizarro World.*

What's upside down? 

Well, to start with, India is the one demanding evidence before it starts calling out foreign intelligence agencies for sponsoring assassinations (as Israel's alleged cullings of Iranian nuclear scientists are generally called) or terrorist attacks (as this week's bombings in Tblisi, New Delhi and Bangkok have been christened). 

Usually, it's the U.S. that needs more and more proof, and it's Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency that's in the cross-hairs.  (This time, India hasn't even whispered a hint that a bombmaker from Lashkar-e-Taiba might have had an advisory role in Monday's explosion).

But that's not the end of it. 

As former Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal wrote in a column for the Mail Today on Monday: "If Pakistan is not a black and white case for the US and its policy towards the former has to take into account its larger regional interests, Iran is not a black and white case for India either and its Iranian policy too has to be adapted to its broader regional interests."

Translation: Iran is to India as Pakistan is to the U.S. — a necessary evil, or an unpleasant ally.

The only part that's not worthy of Bizarro's perfect opposites is that Washington isn't likely to be as patient with India's point of view as New Delhi has been over Pakistan. 

*In Bizarro World, Bizarro is an exact duplicate of Superman, except he's a villain. And so on.