When the conflict of interests is too fundumental, they consider themselves enemies :)
And of course there are countries which are enemies due to ideology.
Either way, congratulations to Slate for reducing politics in the Middle East to three types of smileys. Their readers must love that kind of stuff.
Simplification is a good thing. And the middle east desperately needs some. Sure, the foreign ministries of the world shouldn't use this chart, but that's not really the audience here.
I disagree. After more than a decade of "good vs. evil" and "either with us or with the enemy" propaganda, what the audience needs is the precise opposite of this type of chart.
I'd say countries don't even have interests, people in them have them. No country, and hardly any person, is a monolith.