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Caribbean-Latin America

Chavez's wooing of Iran called troubling

2006-03-04

Bolivar State (near the border with Brazil) in Venezuela has Uranium deposits. Guess where the Iranians are building the cement plants and other enterprises?

Oh, Lawsy, I am so surprised. I feel faint, I'd best go lie down.

They started with an agreement to build tractors, but Iran and Venezuela have quickly moved to oil, cement, homes, auto parts, shipbuilding and perhaps even nuclear energy.

The new friendship between the two deeply anti-American governments was further cemented last month as Iranian Parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel headed a delegation that visited Venezuela and drew expressions of support from populist President Hugo Chavez. "It's a natural byproduct of their confrontation with the United States," said Armando Duran, a columnist and former Venezuelan foreign minister. "Chavez looks for an alliance with those who confront the U.S."

That works both ways.

Iran is not the first or last openly anti-Western Middle Eastern government that has warm relations with Caracas. As an OPEC member, Chavez courted Libya leader Moammar Gadhafi and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and last month endorsed the Palestinian government of Hamas, which Washington and Europe regard as a terrorist organization.

We should remind Q-man of the consequences of going up against us. He seemed to understand that once upon a time.

But few countries are as embroiled in as serious an international controversy as Iran, accused of seeking nuclear weapons. Venezuela joined Cuba and Syria as the only countries to vote in the International Atomic Energy Agency last month against reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council.

Chavez's support for Tehran has proven to be a thorn in the side of efforts to control Iran's nuclear program. And it strengthens his anti-American credentials at a time when he's gearing up for a reelection bid in December. Speaking at a ceremony in which he unveiled the first 400 tractors produced by the Veniran Tractor plant in the southeastern state of Bolivar, Chavez chalked up his country's warm relations with Tehran as "the product of multilateralism, of a multipolar world."

Most commercial agreements are in their initial stages and include a cement factory, oil exploration in the Orinoco River belt, and housing for the poor. The two countries are also establishing a joint operation to build oil tankers and liquid natural gas tankers, and have created a $200 million fund to finance future social and economic projects.

Hugo is blowing through money at a fast clip, isn't he?

But it's clear that the relationship is meant to extend well beyond commercial ties. "The visits that they've made; the declarations they've made. They talk of political commonalities and ideological conceptions that make them long-term allies," said Maria Teresa Romero, a professor of international relations at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas.

The Caracas-Tehran ties have been causing concern in Washington. Addressing the House International Relations Committee last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlighted the Venezuela-Cuba-Iran relationship and described the two countries as Iran's "sidekicks." Days earlier, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Venezuela is "seeking closer economic, military, and diplomatic ties with Iran and North Korea."

Not everyone sees the Caracas-Tehran ties as going beyond mutual political support and a bit of commerce. "So far, it's a stage of exploration and posturing, and certainly could turn into something more serious. But it's very hard to predict right now," said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank.

Mr. Shifter then put his head back into the sand.

Chavez, who has expressed interest in obtaining a nuclear reactor from Argentina, is fostering what he calls a 21st Century socialist revolution. In concert with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, he is also trying to build a Latin American bloc that opposes U.S. trade policies in the region.

U.S. officials accuse Chavez of ruling with an increasingly authoritarian hand at home while financing hand-picked candidates in foreign elections; they describe current State Department policy as designed to contain his hemispheric ambitions. Shifter cautioned that Chavez's relations with the likes of Iran will make it hard for any future State Department officials to argue for a more friendly approach to Chavez. "This is going to make it much more difficult for those in State who have been advocating a more pragmatic relationship with Venezuela," he said.

Posted by:Josing Hupinemp6640

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