Convergences and Divergences on the Iran Issue
Governments like that of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, traditionally supporters of Russia and Iran, adopt positions from a different perspective.
By Rafael Rojas (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – In the last few days, a majority of the Latin American governments have taken positions against the [June 21] US bombardment of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Very few governments, such as Javier Milei’s government in Argentina – whose ever-closer relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump puts it on a different geopolitical plane – have explicitly backed Trump’s unilateral actions that weren’t even approved by the US Congress.
However, Latin America’s general rejection of Trump’s bombardment has different nuances, according to the foreign policy of the Latin American and Caribbean governments. There are leftist governments such as that of Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia, that are opposed to Israel’s escalation and offensive in Gaza and have also opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023.
When progressive governments such as that of Uruguay and Chile, with a broad record of supporting the United Nations resolutions for peace in the Middle East or Ukraine, call for this forum to put the brakes on the United States and Israel, they demonstrate unswerving diplomatic coherency. On the contrary, governments such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, who traditionally provide sectarian support to Russia and Iran, adopt positions from a different perspective.
For decades, Havana and Caracas have cultivated ideological and energy relations with Iran that go beyond their concrete bet on the geopolitical balance in the Middle East. Cuban post-Soviet socialism, like Venezuela’s Chavist regime, have presented themselves as political processes that are close relatives of the Islamic Revolution of the Ayatollahs.
A decade ago, when Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro were still alive, Mahmud Ahmadineyad [President of Iran: 2005 – 2013] travelled constantly to Havana. The Iranian leader promoted projects for energy collaboration with several governments of the Bolivarian Alliance, including in Ecuador under Rafael Correa and Bolivia under Evo Morales. From Russia, Vladimir Putin – another great ally of Teheran, Caracas, and Havana – broadly supported those movements.
The language of the two positions in the past week allows us to note the deep differences in perspective. Venezuela and Cuba have accused the United States of “criminal acts,” while Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala have called on the “parties or nations involved” to “contain and immediately cease hostilities.”
The Venezuelan press maintains that all those Latin American governments have “joined in with” the demands of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, but that’s not so. The diplomacy of the majority of the Latin American governments is focused on calling for peace in the Middle East, without subscribing to the idea of reprisals on the part of Iran, or the “right to self-defense” that Vladamiir Putin has demanded for himself in his war against Ukraine, as well as Benjamin Netanyahu in his assault against Gaza.
Published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.