Posted by
Reeson on Monday, January 15, 2007 9:32:30 AM
Iran is making a concerted push to counter us in our own hemisphere. Ahmadinejad was just in Venezuela as well. Excerpts from the
Center for Security Policy (Miami Herald):
BY TRACI CARL
MANAGUA - Iran's hard-line president expanded his courtship of allies in his standoff with Washington on Sunday, pledging deeper ties with Nicaragua's leftist leader through the opening of new embassies in each other's capitals.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in Managua as part of a whirlwind series of meetings with Latin America's newly inaugurated leftist leaders. He visited fellow OPEC member Venezuela on Saturday, pledging with President Hugo Chávez to spend billions of dollars financing projects in other countries to combat the global influence of their common enemy, the United States.
On Saturday, the U.S. military said five Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. Ahmadinejad did not respond to those allegations while in Managua.