What Does Iran Want From Latin America?

Douglas Farah

Yesterday I spoke at a program sponsored by the Hudson Institute's Latin America center on the growing ties among Iran, Venezuela, and non-state armed actors such as the FARC, and the strategic challenges these alliances pose for the United States.

The topic that dominated the discussion (the panel consisted of Brian Fonseca of FIU, Julio Cirino of Fundacion Pensar, and was moderated by Hillel Fradkin) was the reasons for Iran's multi-billion dollar investment in a region where it has no historic ties, little economic interest and only a very small base of Shite Muslims to influence. I explored some of these economic issues in paper I did last year for the International Assessment and Strategy Center but did not really answer the question asked yesterday, which is fundamental to our understanding of the dynamics in Latin America.

The enigma is what common ground could there be between a leftist, populist leader like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, whose broad vision is a somewhat ill-defined, unified Latin America as Simon Bolivar dreamt of, to a radically conservative religious leader who theistic vision seems to be a world controlled by Sharia law, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.

The answer suggested seemed to be two-fold: a shared hatred of the United States and a desire to make Washington as nervous as possible about as many issues as possible; and a shared view of each other's regimes as revolutionary and fighting broadly for justice or a more just world order.

What is clear is that Iran sees a reason to do this, in a rather methodical and pre-meditated fashion. Given the financial and political strains in Iran, it must be important because it has continued uninterrupted for the past five years, at least. And if it is important to Iran, then it should be important to the United States.