Iran-Venezuela ties worry US
By Danielle Kurtzleben

WASHINGTON - Some foreign policy experts are saying that the deepening relationship between Iran and Venezuela, while worrisome, is not currently a major threat to United States interests.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), three leading academics in the fields of Iranian, Venezuelan and US foreign policy examined the relationship between Iran and Venezuela.

Over the past decade, Iran and Venezuela have increasingly cooperated with each other economically and militarily. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad of Iran and his counterpart President Hugo Chavez have expressed support of each other's most unpopular policies - often while expressing antipathy towards the US as well.
David Myers, professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University, characterized the relationship between these two US antagonists as potentially problematic for US interests, but not immediately threatening.

"I would argue that there's at least enough there that it bears watching," said Myers, adding, "I don't think it's a major national security threat."

Since Chavez became president in 1999, he has visited Iran seven times, and Ahmadinejad has visited Venezuela twice in the same period.

During this time, the relationship between the two countries has extended into a wide range of areas. Iran and Venezuela opened up travel between the two countries in 2007 with weekly flights between Tehran and Caracas.

Economic cooperation has also grown. The countries in April inaugurated the Iranian-Venezuelan Development Bank, a joint venture to fund development projects in both countries. Together, they pledged US$200 million towards the effort.

In addition, Iran has begun manufacturing operations in Venezuela - establishing plants there that produce bicycles, tractors, cars and cement.

The countries enjoy significant military cooperation - Iran provides training and support to the Venezuelan military, having embedded its officers with Venezuelan units since 2006. Myers also noted that, in part due to Iran's influence, Venezuela's military has adopted asymmetric warfare as its official doctrine.

This military relationship was further cemented in April, when, on a visit to Caracas, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammed-Najjar pledged "full support to promote the Venezuelan military's defense capabilities in the framework of mutual defensive agreements".

Iran and Venezuela have a history of advocating for each other's interests, even when most other countries disapprove. Chavez, for example, has voiced support for Iran's uranium-enrichment program. This program causes fears among the US and many other countries about Iran's potential for building nuclear weapons - though Iran insists that it is purely for civilian purposes.

Chavez also congratulated Ahmadinejad on being declared president for a second four-year term after June's Iranian presidential elections, the results of which are widely disputed, both within and outside of Iran.

The US and Venezuela have had a checkered relationship in recent years.

Chavez often refers to the US as the "evil empire" and has accused it of orchestrating the 2002 Venezuelan coup that removed Chavez from power for a short time.

Relations between the US and Venezuela appear to have softened somewhat since the inauguration of Barack Obama as the US president. Obama and Chavez exchanged a handshake and engaged in polite conversation at the April 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, where Chavez also presented Obama with a book.

The US and Venezuela also reinstated their ambassadors to each other's countries this year. Venezuela had expelled the US ambassador in 2007, and the US pulled its ambassador out of Venezuela in response.

More significantly, the US and Venezuela found some common ground in opposing the June coup in Honduras that removed president Manuel Zelaya from office.

Yet, last week saw more anti-American rhetoric from Chavez. At the news of the expansion of the US military presence in neighboring Colombia - ostensibly for counter-narcotic purposes - Chavez called the US "the most aggressive nation in the history of humanity”.

US relations with Iran are even rockier. The US does not currently have diplomatic ties with Tehran - considering the Islamic Republic a state sponsor of terrorism and opposing its uranium-enrichment program. Obama has extended an invitation to Ahmadinejad to talk about Iran's nuclear program and has set September as the deadline for Iran to accept.

In its attempts to extract change from Iran on its nuclear policy, the US's main tool has been economic sanctions - limiting Iranian purchases of US food and medical products. Several Iranian banks are also prohibited from transferring money to or from US banks.

Since June's elections, the US has considered even stricter sanctions that would cut off Iran's imports of gasoline and other refined oil products. A bill allowing the imposition of such sanctions was the topic of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week.

The Venezuela-Iran alliance serves in part to undermine US economic sanctions on Iran. By cooperating with or buying Venezuelan businesses, the Iranian government can effectively do business with US companies or even within the US.

Myers in particular cited the Iranian government's May 2008 purchase of Venezuelan bank Corp Banca CA, thus circumventing the US embargo and effectively allowing Iran to conduct business within the US.

Military cooperation between Iran and Venezuela is even more troubling to top defense officials in the US, who have expressed dismay at Iran establishing a military presence in the US's own "strategic back yard”.

Given the flurry of activity between Iran and Venezuela in the past six months alone, Myers said it would appear that this alliance can only grow: "I think the prognosis is that the ties between Venezuela and Iran are going to be strengthened in the future, not weakened."

Yet, the Iran-Venezuela alliance's significance in terms of US interests is questionable.

Mohsen Milani, professor and chair of the Department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida, said at CSIS that Iran currently had more important issues than its relationship with Venezuela to consider - such as the continuing unrest caused by the June elections and a steadily worsening economic situation.

"Venezuela is not at the top of Iran's priorities," said Milani. "If I were to grade it, I'd give it a C+/B-."

John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, a Washington-based non-governmental organization that promotes human rights and democracy in the region, characterizes Iran's benefits from its relationship with Venezuela as mostly strategic.

"My sense, with regard to Iran's interests in a more high-profile relationship with Venezuela, is that it is part of [Iran's] strategy of balancing its own geopolitical prospects," Walsh told Inter Press Service. "If it feels hemmed in, which it does, and insecure at home, it is another card to play, in terms of how it relates to, in particular, the US."

Chavez's benefits from Iran also go beyond economic and military interests. "If you believe, as Chavez does, that we are now in a multipolar, as opposed to a unipolar moment, then relationships among countries normally considered peripheral are going to take on increasing importance," said Walsh.

He added, "Venezuela is involved with Iran, so then Venezuela has more play with the US."

Walsh said that the US should exercise care that its rhetoric regarding Latin America's relationships to Iran does not become reductive. "There is a lot of talk in Washington that suggests a new Cold War mentality," wherein Latin American countries can easily be broken down and categorized by their political affiliations, he said.

"I think that the issue of Iran's relationship with certain countries is used to persuade people that that is the case. I think it is much more complicated," said Walsh.

He added that he considered such thinking to be not only simplistic, but wrongheaded. "Just consider how Latin American countries view the Iranian regime, and how some feel that Iran has supported terrorism on their own soil. So it is not like people are lining up to align themselves one way or the other."

(Inter Press Service)