He was no longer a pariah, but an eccentric partner.

The only sustained exception was Peru, which defaulted in 1985 and became an international pariah.

Yet, during the years of Angola s pariah status, China provided large scale infrastructure finance in return for oil.

Being part of Russia might have been attractive, but affiliation with a pariah semi state? Not so much.

To make of their country a pariah is a political, strategic, and moral failure for the leaders of Israel.

At the same time, it has left Japan s long sought transcendence of its war guilt and quasi pariah status incomplete.

China appears to believe that it can secure its energy imports by locking up oil contracts with pariah states like Sudan.

By continuing to support Assad despite his use of chemical weapons, Russia s standing in the Arab world has gone from patron to pariah.

In the quid pro quo that followed, Qaddafi agreed to eliminate his nascent nuclear program in exchange for an end to pariah status.

But Qaddafi s regime became an international pariah mainly for a series of terrorist plots abroad, not for crimes against humanity committed against Libyans.

In addition, if Ukraine s President becomes an international pariah, he can only turn to Russia, as is the case of President Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus.

As for Pinochet himself, ever since July 2004, when the US Senate revealed his vast secret bank accounts, the once powerful dictator has become a pariah.

Ahmedinejad can sense an international community divided, and like his fellow pariah leader, North Korea s Kim Jong il, he is exploiting that division at every opportunity.

And the US India nuclear deal effectively recognizes India s legitimacy as a nuclear power while continuing to treat Pakistan, with its record of proliferation, as a pariah.

By treating Lukashenka as a favored business partner at the same time that the EU is trying to isolate him as an international pariah, European hypocrisy stands naked.

Over the past few days, however, she has become a pariah in the blogosphere for her reactions to the current crisis in Gaza, deemed as sympathetic to Palestinians.

Myanmar s people want the same, but their country is being pushed towards collapse by years of political and economic crisis, and might well become ASEAN s pariah, like Africa s Zimbabwe.

Nor was Muammar Khaddafi s decision to stop being an international pariah entirely unrelated to his concern to bequeath to his son a state that lives in peace with the world.

At that point, Israel would thus be subject to international sanctions that would destroy its economy and further undermine its image, condemning the country to the status of an international pariah.

Under Taylor's leadership, Liberia became internationally known as a pariah state due to the use of blood diamonds and illegal timber exports to fund the Revolutionary United Front in the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Under President Bush, the US has taken robust stands on human rights conditions not only in pariah countries such as Burma, Cuba, and Syria, but also in strategically important countries like Egypt, Uzbekistan, and China.

Western analysts have tended either to dismiss Turkmenistan as a human rights pariah, or to approach the country simply as a source of natural gas in the ongoing pipeline competition involving Western Europe and Russia.

But Qaddafi s regime became an international pariah mainly for a series of terrorist plots abroad, not for crimes against humanity committed against Libyans. Oil interests and the regime s dovish face in recent years successfully extended its life.

Yet, despite history s long train of failures, Hamas s June 2007 seizure of control of Gaza, and its pariah status in the West, we are repeatedly told by the US that 2008 will be the year of a peace agreement.

The international community branded each of these countries a pariah, and various international organizations, such as the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community, have responded by suspending membership and occasionally imposing sanctions.

On the other hand, Moscow s elite who fear that their assets may be expropriated by a future government wants to avoid international pariah status so that they can see out their sun set years in the safety of the West if the need arises.

In a world where, for many Israelis and non Israeli Jews, Israel is becoming to the community of nations what Jews once were in the community of peoples a pariah state, if not an eternal scapegoat the memory of the Shoah resounds with a vengeance.

In addition, if Ukraine s President becomes an international pariah, he can only turn to Russia, as is the case of President Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus. After this spectacular Russian failure, however, Putin s managed democracy looks anachronistic and faces the threat of a real democracy in its neighbor spreading to Russia.