Last week, I told a group of Georgian journalists that I’d had some of my first interest from international publications in a regional story in a long time.

“You can probably guess what it was about,” I said.

Silence.

They looked at each other and threw out a few suggestions.

“No, not the deal between Georgia and Turkey to refurbish each other’s historic sites – Yes, I know the Patriarch is pissed about it -- but no, not that. No, not the latest domestic political nonsense.”

I was quite surprised that it was the first time that Georgia had been back in international headlines and no one in the local media was talking about it.

Last Monday, a bomb was found attached to the private car of a driver for the Israeli embassy in Georgia. The same day, a bomb exploded on an Israeli embassy vehicle in New Dehli, India, wounding the Israeli defense attaché’s wife, among others.

Less than three weeks earlier, neighboring Azerbaijan announced it had arrested three would-be assassins who were allegedly hired and paid to kill the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. Last Monday, Tehran accused Azerbaijan of aiding Israeli intelligence forces in assassinating Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was also killed by a bomb magnetically attached to his car in early January. At the time, a top Iranian official told a local newspaper that "Iran's reaction will extend beyond the borders and beyond the region. […] None of those who ordered these attacks should feel safe anywhere.”

While there is not yet any concrete evidence tying Iran to the attacks there is no other country with the same combination of motive, capability, and history of similar behavior as Iran. Furthermore, the attacks came one day after the anniversary of the assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, ostensibly by Israeli operatives.

On Saturday, Hezbollah reiterated its alliance with Iran, and its leader Seyed Hassan Nasrallah said this month that Iran had provided it "moral, political and financial support in all its available forms since 1982,” according to the Asia Times.

Sure, the bombings could have been organized by a rogue Israeli or Iranian group, or a third party interested in deepening the current Israeli-Iranian tensions. But, it’s still a very big deal that bombs are showing up Israeli diplomatic vehicles in Georgia, a country that has worked hard to fix its relationship with Israel of late, and has also cultivated visa-free travel and other bilateral arrangements with Iran.

Georgia’s rapprochement with Iran has always been a bit of a peculiar phenomenon, given that Georgia is also the most enthusiastic NATO aspirant company on the planet. While sending thousands of troops to American missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and publicly offering its territory as a location for the European Missile Shield, its officials have also ardently courted Iranian tourists and investors.

The reason this story has gotten very little play on Georgia’s pro-government channels and the government response has been muted is because it reveals a very inconvenient truth about the state of Georgia’s current foreign policy. Over the last decade, Georgia has urgently sought outside allies to support and protect it from its arch-enemy, Russia. Now , Georgia realizes that many of its new friends, in fact, hate each other and it may have just attracted more heat for itself by embracing the interests of both sides.

It was only a matter of time before this paradox would come to a head. Over the past two years, Georgian foreign ministry officials have been splitting time between Washington and Tehran, courting increased American military presence in Georgian territory and pledging to Iranian leaders that Georgia would never do anything to undermine Iran’s security. These two positions obviously run directly counter to one another.

Lincoln Mitchell, a TFT contributor and professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs told me in an interview for the Asia Times that Georgia should have seen this coming.

"I may sound like a crazy American, but if you let Iranians come in without visas, this kind of thing is going to happen. Iran has made its views on Israel quite clear, and the notion that some Iranians might come in and do bad things to friends of America and friends of Georgia is not crazy," he said. 

Mikheil Saakashvili’s government has yet to come fully clean about the costs of talking its way desperately into an alliance with the United States. Georgia has so far lost 20 soldiers in Iran and Afghanistan, with untold numbers maimed and injured. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO’s primary raison d’etre has been to support American military adventures and encircle whatever the West deems is a “rogue state.”

Therefore, in pushing hard for NATO membership, Georgia has not only further enraged Russia, but it may be drawing the fury of a second regional power – Iran. Meanwhile, Mitchell said its attempts to maintain an open relationship with Iran are most likely to hurt its fragile ties to Israel and its power backers in Washington

"For Georgia, which is a client of the US, whose base in the US is in the far right, this is the one fight they can't pick because they'll never win,” he said.

Although there has been near total government silence on the car bomb in Tbilisi, a statement released by the president’s administration called the attack “a serious challenge” to the state. What the country needs now is a serious conversation about the costs and benefits of joining the alliance.

This May, NATO will convene a summit in Chicago, during which Georgia’s membership will reportedly be on the agenda. Although, even if approved, Georgia would not be made a member of NATO for several years, as a NATO member state it would instantly be a target for those who view the alliance as a threat, and as last week’s events demonstrate, it may not be possible or the small country to maintain its optimistic neutrality along with its unblinkingly pro-Western trajectory.