MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — If the ruling mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran were chafing enough about U.S. Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to send speedboats after them last month, they must take some comfort in having projected an equivalent threat in America's own backyard, in this unlikeliest of locales.
The Iranians have planted their flag here in the tree-festooned wilderness of hills that jut out to shelter a vast, unspoiled Caribbean bay on Nicaragua's eastern shore. The point's namesake monkeys swing through the heavy canopy above the smattering of Rama Indians and black Creole people who hunt them and other wildlife for daily sustenance, just as they have for generations.
Until recently, one local boxer's fortune was about the only story preoccupying the 300-odd Creole of Monkey Point. But perspectives broadened suddenly in March when Iranians and Venezuelans showed up aboard Nicaraguan military helicopters.
Ultimately, the longevity of Iran's presence in Nicaragua may depend on whether Mr. Ortega can maintain a razor-thin margin of domestic support. There are signs that has become more tenuous with each new press report about Revolutionary Guards roving around. Increasingly alarmed domestic opponents of the Ortega regime fret about earning American enmity by taking the wrong side once again.
"That the Sandinistas helped at least 21 Iranians come and go under cover "is very worrisome," a former presidential candidate, Eduardo Montelegre, who was the runner-up to Mr. Ortega. "We don't know where those Iranians are going, hopefully not to the U.S. But wherever they're going, it's certainly not to do any good." |