Posted by
Benyamin Solomon on Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:10:00 AM
By John Kiriakou, LA Times
As Washington ignores the region, Tehran has been making friends and influencing nations.
Iran,
the ultimate mischief maker with global reach, astounding patience, a
shameless marriage to mayhem and terrorism, and interests that fall
squarely in opposition to those of the United States, is making major
diplomatic inroads under Washington's nose.
It's amazing,
really. Iran, after all, is regarded by most of the world as an outlaw
country. Sanctions are in place on much of its military-industrial
complex, and international loan guarantees are virtually impossible to
come by. The Iranian economy is in tatters. Even while $100-plus oil
was enriching most producers in the region, Iran's low-tech, outdated
industry was barely profiting. In fact, 6% of the country's gasoline is
imported.
Nevertheless, over the last year, Iran has
worked diligently to expand relations with a host of Latin American
countries, most of which have populist leaders who harbor a strong
distrust of the United States and are looking for a powerful friend to
help them rebuff Washington's influence.
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez, for instance, has held up his close ties with Iran as an
example of what his revolution can do for the region. He has much to
show for it, including an Iranian ammunition factory, a car assembly
plant, a cement factory and other such examples of Iranian involvement.
And just to make sure the U.S. can't interfere (as it has in the past),
Iran Air initiated direct air service between Tehran, Damascus and
Caracas.
Then there's Paraguay's new president, Fernando Lugo
Mendez, who was lauded in the Iranian media as "an enemy of the Great
Satan" after naming Hezbollah sympathizer and fundraiser Alejandro
Hamed Franco as the country's new foreign minister. Hezbollah -- which
is Iranian funded and supported -- already has a well-documented
presence in Paraguay, and the U.S. State Department has banned the
minister from entering the United States or from flying on a U.S.
airline.
Bolivian President Evo Morales jumped into
Iran's lap even more quickly than his neighbors, ordering his foreign
minister to lift visa restrictions on Iranian citizens in exchange for
a $1.1-billion Iranian investment in Bolivia's gas facilities. Morales
then gushed that Bolivia would move its only embassy in the Middle East
from Cairo to Tehran. Iranian state television even agreed to provide
Bolivian state television with Spanish-language programming, making it
that much easier for every Bolivian to receive Iranian-produced news
and documentary shows -- i.e. propaganda.
The real danger here
doesn't have to do with an arcane diplomatic battle over who has more
friends in Latin America. The problem is visa-free Iranian travel and
the potential creation of a terrorist base of operations in the United
States' backyard. If anyone with an Iranian passport may enter Bolivia
without a visa or any further documentation, the country will soon be
open to covert officers of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and
Security, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which the State Department
recently declared a terrorist organization, and the Quds Force, an
Iranian military group whose mandate is to spread Islamic revolution
around the world.
A further danger is if other Latin American
countries follow the Bolivian lead and lift visa restrictions. Iran
already has proved what it can do in Latin America
with visa
restrictions. In 1994, Iranian agents worked with Hezbollah terrorists
to bomb a Jewish association's community center in Argentina, killing
85 people and wounding hundreds. An established Iranian intelligence
presence traveling freely throughout Latin America would make
counter-terrorism efforts in the region much more difficult.
The
United States still has an opportunity to stop the Iranians in their
tracks in Latin America. But it's a big job. The growing Iranian
influence -- inconceivable a decade ago -- is the result of the
decision by the United States to stop paying attention to the region.
And it will only be reversed if the U.S. changes its policy.
First,
the new president must reverse the Bush administration's policy of
ignoring Latin America and instead engage those countries in active
diplomacy. Political and economic relations must improve to the point
at which there is simply no benefit to breaking bread with Iran.
Diplomacy will be slow, difficult and probably expensive. Iran is
spending billions of dollars on the continent, and the U.S. must do the
same. Trade agreements must be negotiated, an immigration policy must
be conceived and implemented, and the new administration must pay our
neighbors the attention that is necessary to win them over.
The only alternative is yet another front in the ongoing battle against terrorism.
John Kiriakou, now in the private sector, served as a CIA counter-
terrorism official from 1998-2004.