The Ahmadinejad factor

The concept has been rooted in Kautsky, the high priest of orthodoxy during the Second International, and traversed the 20th century in the works of Regis Debray ("Revolution in the Revolution", 1969), Ernest Mandel ("Late Capitalism", 1972), Rudolf Bahro ("The Alternative in Eastern Europe", 1977), and reached José Guilherme Merquior ("Western Marxism", 1985): countries with late capitalism tend to emulate, also belatedly, what the "matrix" countries did forty years earlier.

Nothing could be more natural. Hence, Latin America, basically wealthy, with a handful of communist Indians in power (Chavez, Rafael Correa, Evo), is practicing the return of the repressed. They want to give back to the US the payback for the years and years of incapacitation, technically permanent, that Uncle Sam imposed on Latinos.

Okay, some will say, tit for tat doesn't hurt – indeed, the only axiom followed to the letter by the quid pro quo of the rule of law established here, in the lands of King John Cigar.

The resentment of the locals backfired with the presence of the Iranian president at Rio+20. Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is known to be the world's greatest millenarian. The concept dates back to the fool, an American from Massachusetts, born in 1782, William Miller. He made a fortune selling "ascension robes," made of cotton. They were to clothe the "good," those who would be taken to the kingdom of heaven when the messiah returned. The messiah did not return, nor will he return. But the concept of millenarianism, dividing the world between good guys and bad guys, works very well. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a psychopath who believes in a final battle, with nuclear weapons, near Mount Megiddo in Israel, whose name, incidentally, gave rise to the word Armageddon. The psycho Mahmoud Ahmadinejad professes the final battle between Shiite forces and "Judeo-Christian-Western capitalism." And preferably with nuclear weapons. The president of Iran returns to Latin America to proselytize the indigenous people through nuclear weapons. But nothing different, in essence, from the Vatican that blessed armies.

For the second time in six months, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting Latin America. Now, the eccentric president's saga includes Brazil, where he will participate in the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, "Rio+20," as well as Bolivia and Venezuela.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad practices no ecology. "The Iranian territory suffers from an extensive process of desertification, the air in its cities is among the most polluted in the world, and most of its population lives without infrastructure for wastewater treatment," reveals a study by Professor Román D. Ortiz, professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Los Andes (Bogotá).

The report from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November 2011 already revealed that Iran maintains an illegal nuclear program whose sole objective is the production of an atomic weapon.

The study shows that the most strategic stop on Ahmadinejad's trip is Caracas:

"Recently, military cooperation between Venezuela and Iran has become public. On June 14th, President Chávez presented to the press an unmanned aircraft christened Arpía 001, which he declared to be the result of bilateral cooperation. In reality, it was a replica of a Mohajer 2, an Iranian-designed device intended for intelligence gathering. According to journalistic sources, the project was the result of an agreement between the state-owned Compañía Anónima Venezuelana de Industrias Militares (CAVIM) and the Aviation Industries Organization (AIO) of the Islamic Republic for a value of 28 million dollars. However, the United Nations prohibited its members from purchasing Iranian military equipment in March 2007, as part of sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to abandon its illegal nuclear program. Consequently, the presentation of Arpía 001 became material proof that Venezuela is violating international law."

In November 2010, the German newspaper Die Welt revealed talks between Caracas and Tehran for the installation of a binational long-range rocket base on Venezuelan territory, which could house Scud C (500 km range) and Shahab 3 (up to 1.500 km) systems. Later, it became known that Caracas officials had been invited by Sharif University in Tehran, one of the key research centers in the Islamic Republic's missile program. Simultaneously, the Iranian company Parchin Chemical Industries, in cooperation with Petroquímica de Venezuela (Pequiven), established a supposed explosives factory in the state of Morón.

AIO and Parchin have two things in common. Both are an integral part of the Iranian missile program, and both are under the control of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Therefore, it seems logical that General Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, has visited Venezuela a couple of times in the last two years. With this background, according to the Spanish newspaper ABC, the construction of large-scale facilities under Iranian control in Maracay and the arrival of a large number of visitors of the same nationality in this location only increase suspicions about Tehran-Caracas cooperation.

Professor Román D. Ortiz is clear: Iran promises to be a force in favor of radicalization in the transition to a post-Chávez Venezuela, but considering that the geographical and cultural distance separating the Islamic Republic from the Caribbean country limits its influence, it is to be expected that the ayatollahs will try to support the more "hardline" sectors of the Bolivarian revolution. It wouldn't be the first time Tehran has exported repression. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is advising the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in its campaign against the internal opposition.

Iran's interests in Bolivia: the mining sector, in which Tehran is interested in exploring potential uranium deposits and participating in the exploitation of the immense existing lithium deposits. On the other hand, there is military cooperation, where the Islamic Republic has secured a preliminary agreement to supply some domestically manufactured aircraft and participate in the maintenance of equipment for the La Paz Air Force. "With a view to achieving these objectives, the Islamic Republic has sufficient financial and technical resources to gain decisive influence over a Bolivian state eager to receive cooperation," analyzes Professor Román D. Ortiz.

Tehran has joined forces with a handful of crazy Indians to try and give back to the US what they gave away cheaply to the world. And the psycho-zealot Ahmadinejad will be applauded by the usual freedom-killers: marching priests, NGO workers, psychology students, chic hippies, unhinged communists, guilty-minded capitalists, progressive bloggers.

And especially by people who make a lot of money badmouthing capitalism (something they learned in 1974, after Pink Floyd got rich badmouthing money in the song "Money"...)