Posted on 05/07/2008 9:23:42 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran is making allies in Latin America to counter Washington's traditional influence in the region and could use them to threaten U.S. security, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday.
"We are worried that in the event of a conflict with Iran, that it would attempt to use its presence in the region to conduct such activities against us," Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told Reuters.
Left-wing governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have all become allies of Iran in recent years, and other countries in Latin America have diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic.
Shannon said Iran wants to ease its international isolation by showing it is able to win friends in Latin America, which has been historically in the United States' "sphere of influence."
Washington accuses Iran of supporting terrorist groups and secretly trying to produce nuclear bombs, and is concerned by its courting of allies in Latin America.
Shannon urged the region's governments to respect U.N.-backed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and recalled accusations that Iran was involved in attacks on the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires during the 1990s.
"We urge our friends and partners in the region to be vigilant," he said, adding that those attacks show Iran is able "to conduct terrorist operations within the Americas."
Iran has denied any involvement in the Buenos Aires attacks, which killed well over 100 people.
Tonight Dick Morris said that Benjamin Netanyahu will be Israeli PM within six months and will launch a preemptive strike against Iran. You go, Bibi!
Here’s hoping the ol’ toesucker gets that one right.
Israel could do a helluva lot worse than BiBi and has for quite a while, imo
Shannon is s key to funneling US tax dollars south of the border...
but it doesn’t worry the democrat party!!!! Not losing any sleep over this down at Capitol Hill!
One of the major foreign policy weaknesses of both the Clinton and Dubya administrations is that they have minimized the historical precedent of the Monroe Doctrine. I mean, what ever happened to that? The last president to project force in the Americas was Daddy Bush when he led the invasion into Panama. Since then, we had Clinton sending peacekeepers into Haiti, consistent aid to Colombia, and that’s about it.
One of the major foreign policy weaknesses of both the Clinton and Dubya administrations is that they have minimized the historical precedent of the Monroe Doctrine. I mean, what ever happened to that?
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Good question.
I have worried about South America for quite some time.
From what I have read..there is a great deal of Al Queda in S.A. Not to mention the Nazi refugees.
Way too close for comfort..especially with a porous border.
It died with the Cuban revolution and Soviet support for Castro. Didn't it?
Globalism and bureaucracy.
" What does all this mean for President Monroe’s doctrine? The Bush Doctrine may share an intellectual heritage with the Monroe Doctrine, but the practical implementation of Bush’s foreign policy has created a climate that has eviscerated what was left of the Monroe Doctrine’s relevance in Latin America. The United States has been distracted at a time when rivals like China, Iran, and Russia are newly emboldened to seek alliances in the region. Economic globalization in any event has assured Latin America’s increasing connectivity to nations across the oceans, essentially rendering obsolete Monroe’s vision of a hemisphere under us tutelage. In 2008, the Monroe Doctrine has become the phantom limb of America’s posture in the hemisphere: us policy makers still occasionally feel its tingle, but no weight can be put on it."
Requiem for the Monroe Doctrine - Daniel P. Erikson (PDF)
INTER-AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC CHARTER (Adopted by the General Assembly at its special session held in Lima, Peru, on September 11, 2001)
“a new hemispheric consensus” AKA “global test”
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Loy Henderson Auditorium
Washington, DC
May 7, 2008
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/05/104461.htm
(Bookmarking Rice on Merida Initiative)
Interesting comment.
If the US has been so worried about Iran (going back decades now - 1979), then why the Clinton administration secretly allow Iran (in contradistinction to UN resolutions) to arm the Bosnian Muslims in the mid 90's?
They have had it coming for almost 30 years now.
Sources:
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/04/af8904ce-0073-4cf4-bb19-aad2401673d3.html
http://terrorism.about.com/b/2007/01/27/iran-playing-afghan-sandbox-while-us-media-attention-is-focused-on-iran-in-iraq.htm
Remember, that Putin and Co from Russia also endorse this intrusion.
It died with American leftists’ support for Communism in Latin America. The left - including the entire Democrat party - then by default ended up defending any foreign intrusion that assisted in the spreading of Communism (the Soviet Union, for example). They also ended up supporting guerrillas and various destabilizing movements that destroyed these budding economies and created the climate in which people see the left, with its airy promises, as a savior. And of course the Dems and more radical left loved the ethnocentric policies of these groups, which pit the various Latin American indigenous or Indian groups against Latin Americans of European descent.
The left has done enormous damage to Latin America. But the problem is that since this left was not only the radical left, but our very own Democratic Party, with luminaries such as an ex-president, Jimmy Carter, we have been unable to deal with Latin America realistically and exert any effort to defend our interests there. Look at how the Dems in Congress are trying to prevent aid to Colombia, which is one country in which we have had some success in defeating a radical movement (although only since Bush has been in office - Clinton handed off most of the country to FARC).
So the big problem with the Monroe Doctrine is that the Democrats don’t support it, and in fact actually want Latin America to be our enemy.
Absolutely agree. And to the countries like Columbia that are more inclined to be allied with us? Our wonderful Democrat-led Congress squashes a crucial trade deal. Another brilliant foreign policy move brought to us by the morons that can’t see two feet in front f their face.
The Monroe Doctrine was military imperialism.
Today we use the FTAs and Chavez, Morales, Obrador, and Noriega accuse us of economic imperialism.
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