Posted on 12/22/2007 10:59:10 AM PST by 3AngelaD
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega may appear too insignificant to create U.S. security risks from his tiny, impoverished nation. But the leftist's growing alliance with Tehran tells another story. Ortega is the same Marxist Sandinista leader that Ronald Reagan in 1989 dubbed "the unwanted animal at the garden party...
Ortega had shot his way to power, forged an alliance with Cuba and ignited a long civil war. He was surprised when Nicaraguan voters unceremoniously threw him out in 1990. Since then, Ortega has changed his tune...He now calls himself a social democrat, and he lowered his anti-American rhetoric to win a new election. But less than a year into his new term, he shows that he hasn't changed a bit.
Ortega is moving to forge a new and more dangerous alliance not just with Cuba, but now with Iran, with its nuclear ambitions and desire to strike out at the U.S. ...It's a bid to sell out his dirt-poor country to an anti-American patron seeking to expand its influence close to U.S. shores...The Soviets sought a beachhead to extend their regional influence, and Nicaragua along the only land route connecting North and South America fit the bill. The route is already used by drug lords and alien smugglers, and it could open up opportunities for what Iran might also like to smuggle north....
Nicaragua could be a base for Iran to menace the U.S. as pressure builds to disarm Tehran's nuclear program. Ortega's other patron, Chavez, has repeatedly said that if the U.S. takes any action against Iran, he'll retaliate...Reagan understood the danger of rogue players operating to our south. With Ortega willing to sell out to the world's worst regimes, it's time to move his designs higher up on the U.S. national security radar.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I still don’t understand why we didn’t let Ollie North finish taking this guy completely out.
Nor do I. Don’t forget that while he was out of power, he was busy molesting his stepdaughter.
What do you expect when we permit a poor and uneducated nation to be democratic?
You just reminded me (with the photo that you provided) of when President Reagan referred to Ortega as a "dictator with designer glasses".
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