Israel Matzav

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center: Iran using Chavez to export Islamic revolution to Latin America

Just two days after US President Barack Hussein I'm Sorry Obama shook his hand warmly in Port of Spain, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a willing tool to export the Islamic revolution to Latin America and to threaten United States interests in the region.


As of now, the full study is only available in Hebrew, but there is an English summary here. It's not a pretty picture.

2. The springboard for Iranian influence, and the figure marketing Iran to other Latin American countries, is Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez , a leader in anti-American defiance. Chavez has met with Ahmadinejad a number of times in both Tehran and Caracas , and in effect opened Venezuela – and later Bolivia , Nicaragua and Ecuador – to the Iranians. Latin American leaders who were almost unknown in Tehran until Ahmadinejad was elected have become familiar faces, and their relations with Iran are blooming.

3. Iran 's increased activity in Latin America is part of its overall strategy , and its goals go far beyond the desire to achieve hegemony in the Middle East . Iran , which regards itself as besieged by the United States and stubbornly conducts a nuclear crisis with the West, seeks to pose a revolutionary challenge to America in its own back yard, as well as in various areas of Asia and Africa . To that end Tehran exploits its relative advantages of anti-American ideology and rhetoric. The Iranians use as political leverage petrodollars and Muslim populations, some of them Shi'ite-Lebanese, living in key Latin America countries and potentially able to advance Iranian interests.

4. Those interests, which lie behind Iran 's desire to strengthen relations with Latin America , are:

i) To improve Iran 's strategic position vis-à-vis the United States by posing a potential threat and creating a kind of balance of power which will challenge America by collaborating with revolutionary countries in Latin America and establishing a significant presence on their soil. Iranian assets in Latin America may be used practically in the dialogue the Obama administration is trying to advance with Iran to settle the nuclear crisis.

ii) Economically , to erode the sanctions imposed on Iran through new markets. That can be done by coordinating prices with the major oil exporting countries ( Iran and Venezuela are respectively the fourth and fifth largest exporters of oil in the world). That also can be done by cooperation in refining crude oil should the sanctions against Iran be ramped up, since Iran has difficulties in refining its own oil and is completely dependent on imported distillates.

iii) To damage Israel 's relations with Latin American countries , for example the severing of Israel 's diplomatic relations with both Venezuela and Bolivia during Operation Cast Lead. In addition, such a situation creates an internal political climate which encourages attacks on Jewish communities in Latin America , as witnessed by the vandalizing of the largest synagogue in Caracas , the capital of Venezuela.

iv) To create intelligence and terrorism networks which will provide Iran with operational options to respond to events or initiate terrorist attacks against Israel and the United States, under the right circumstances when the order is given.1 Iran uses its proxy Hezbollah , whose activities and presence are widespread and increasing in Latin America , including in ordinary crime such a drug dealing.

v) To spread Iranian, Khomeini-inspired Shi'ite Islam to the non-Muslim communities in Latin America, and at the same time to disseminate the ideology of the Iranian Islamic revolution and Iranian political influence in Muslim communities, especially Shi'ite-Lebanese (part of Iranian activities around the world).

5. As it does in the Middle East , in Latin America Iran uses terrorism and subversion to advance its aims. And as in the Middle East and elsewhere, the main Iranian operational arm is the Revolutionary Guards . The Revolutionary Guards assist Hezbollah, whose activities in Latin America began before Ahmadinejad , and serve as its proxy for constructing terrorist networks. Hezbollah raises the funds necessary for maintaining the terrorist networks in Lebanon and Latin America and connections with local criminal cartels, such as those in the Gran Chaco triangle bordered by Brazil , Argentina and Paraguay , Venezuela 's Margarita Island and among the drug cartels of Colombia and Mexico . During the 1990s Hezbollah and Iran 's terrorist networks in Argentina were used to carry out two mass-casualty terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires (the bombing of the Israeli embassy in 1992 and of the AMIA building in 1994) in retaliation for the blows suffered by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Read the whole thing. For those who read Hebrew, the full study may be found here.

Midwest Jim reports that the man behind Obama and Chavez in the first photo above is a murderer who took part in a failed coup along with Chavez in 1992.

Read the whole thing.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:53 PM