The international spotlight might be focused on the Obama administration's efforts to change the tone of its dealings with Iran. But while global attention concentrates on the new U.S. approach, Iran's regional relations with countries in the Middle East and beyond are undergoing a dramatic transformation, with repercussions that reach across the globe. A growing number of Arab countries have engaged in open diplomatic confrontation with Tehran. To compensate for the loss of friends in its own neighborhood, Iran has increasingly forged ties with leftist governments in Latin America, using its growing presence there to find novel ways to help its allied militias closer to home.
On Tuesday, prosecutors in the Netherlands announced the arrest of 17 members of a drug trafficking gang on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao. According to officials, the gang had smuggled roughly a ton of cocaine to Europe each year, using the proceeds to buy weapons in Latin America to ship to Hezbollah, the Iran-affiliated Lebanon-based group.
The news did not come as much of a surprise to the U.S. military. Just last month, the head of the U.S.military's Southern Command discussed Iran's increasing activities in Latin America and the Caribbean in order to help Hezbollah. The Shiite militant group is part of Lebanon's power-sharing government, despite being labeled a terrorist organization by, among others, the U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands.
The Islamic Republic's attention to Latin America is hardly a secret. In recent years, Iranian diplomats, beginning with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have launched a regional charm offensive that has produced tangible results.
As a religiously inspired, deeply conservative regime, Iran's government is not a perfect ideological fit for the fiery leftist regimes of South America. The common denominator, however, is not views on the role of women or religion in society, but rather hatred of the United States.
With shared anti-Americanism as a foundation, Iran first found love in Latin America with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela. Iran has already built a weapons factory there, and has participated in a number of other enterprises, including construction of cement and car factories, projects in banking and hydrocarbons, and many others.
Of all the joint initiatives, the one that most troubles Western analysts is the regular air service linking Tehran and Caracas. Who, they wonder, is filling all those seats? The fear is that the Iran Air flights might be facilitating potentially illicit activities.
In addition to Venezuela, Ahmadinejad found a new friend in Bolivia, whose indigenous president, Evo Morales, announced visa-free entry for all Iranian citizens, as well as a billion-dollar investment by Tehran in his country. When Paraguayans elected a new leftist president last year, the Iranian government celebrated effusively. After all, President Fernando Lugo's first foreign minister, Alejandro Hamed, held well-known views in strong support of Hezbollah. Hamed's Middle East links became so controversial that President Lugo eventually replaced him. He remains in the government, however, as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs, a post one would not normally expect in a country such as Paraguay.
Iran has also built new links with leftist governments in Ecuador and Nicaragua.
Tehran's new friendships in the Western Hemisphere come at a time when relationships closer to home have come under pressure. A simmering dispute with Egypt has bubbled to the surface, with the arrest of an Iran-backed Hezbollah cell by Egyptian agents. Egypt, like other Arab countries, worries that Iran aims to gain control of the region. That fear, however, is not often expressed publicly. Until now. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abdul Gheit told the Pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that, "Iran, and Iran's followers, want Egypt to become a maid of honor for the crowned Iranian queen when she enters the Middle East."
The kingdom of Morocco recently announced it was severing diplomatic relations with Tehran, charging the Islamic Republic with trying to convert Moroccan Sunnis to the Shiite branch of Islam.
Iran also has deeply strained relations with Gulf countries. The United Arab Emirates have a longstanding territorial dispute with Tehran, and a seemingly trivial battle has long brewed over the correct name of the Gulf, which Arabs call the Arabian Gulf and Iranians call the Persian Gulf. Behind the semantic dispute lies a geopolitical contest over regional dominance. A prominent Iranian recently referred to the independent Gulf nation of Bahrain as Iran's 14th province, raising the ire not only of Bahrain, but of all its Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, which has always eyed Iran with intense distrust.
As Iran faces harsh diplomatic headwinds in the Middle East, the breezes of the Caribbean and Latin America feel much more pleasant. And yet, the weather might just change there, as well. Washington's new diplomatic approach includes mending relations with Latin America. If the Obama administration succeeds in regaining favor in Latin America, Tehran's smooth sailing there could come to an end.
Frida Ghitis is an independent commentator on world affairs and a World Politics Review contributing editor. Her weekly column, World Citizen, appears every Thursday.
Photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, September 2007 (Daniella Zalcman, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License).
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