Iran Touts Its Islamic Republic as Model for New Arab Regimes
Bloomberg--Iran sees the turmoil in the Arab world playing to its benefit, with new governments likely to emulate the Islamic Republic’s independence from the U.S. and other Western powers, Iran’s envoy to the United NaIran sees the turmoil in the Arab world playing to its benefit, with new governments likely to emulate the Islamic Republic’s independence from the U.S. and other Western powers, Iran’s envoy to the United Nations said.
“The geo-political picture of the region is changing in favor of Iran,” Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said in an interview yesterday in his New York office. “The movement in the region is against the old system of dictatorship kinds of governments, having rulers that follow the wishes of the big powers in the world.”
The unrest that has shaken or toppled governments from Tunisia to Bahrain will create a “different power structure,” Khazaee said. “You will have a different Egypt. You will have a different Libya. You have a different Tunisia.”
The new leaders may respect Iran’s strength in pursuing its “national interests without listening to outsiders the way Hosni Mubarak was listening to them,” he said.
Khazaee referred to the deposed president of Egypt, a U.S. ally who made peace with Israel and promoted an end to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.
The transition in the Arab world might strengthen Iran’s standing and pose a threat to the West if Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest organized opposition group, gain strength, according to Ilan Berman, vice president of the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council.
“Certainly there is a danger,” Berman said in an interview. “The new regime in Egypt may be more favorable to a partnership with Iran than Mubarak was. Certainly, Iran has tried very hard to project a sense of triumphalism.”Continued…
US general voices concern over Iran-Venezuela ties
AFP— The United States is worried about increasingly close ties between Venezuela and Iran, a top US military official told lawmakers Tuesday.
"My concern, as I look at it, is the fact that there are flights between Iran and Venezuela on a weekly basis, and visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela or Bolivia or Nicaragua," said General Douglas Fraser, head of the US Southern Command.
"So we don’t have a lot of visibility in who’s visiting and who isn’t, and that’s really where I see the concerns."
Fraser said there were "growing opportunities for military-to-military connections," but that these were not apparent yet.
Last month, Washington warned Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez against violating international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Western powers believe masks an attempt to build nuclear weapons.
US officials said last month there was no evidence the Chavez regime had violated those sanctions, but Washington is closely examining whether Venezuela’s cooperation with Iran on energy issues is a violation.
Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad both denounced American "imperialism" and called for a "new world order" during recent talks.