Was Hugo Chavez a closet member of Hezbollah and a “follower of the Imam”? According to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the answer is an emphatic yes.
“Chavez was a pure mobilized revolutionary and a Hezbollahi,” Ahmadinejad said. “In all his speeches he was inspired by and often remembered the name and the teachings of our late Imam.”
He also described Chavez’s death as “suspicious,” echoing claims in Caracas that US secret agents had infected the Venezuelan leader with cancer.
“Chavez was a deep believer and a follower of the path of the Prophet,” Ahmadinejad said. “This is why he will never die. Chavez will return alongside the Hidden Imam and Jesus to prepare mankind for perpetual peace, justice and love.”
To underline Chavez’s importance as an ally in “the global struggle against the American Great Satan,” Tehran declared a day of national mourning. And Ahmadinejad flew to Caracas at the head of a 40-man delegation to attend yesterday’s state funeral for Chavez.
Although Chavez had not converted to Shiism, he enjoyed de facto recognition as “a true believer.” This is why three years ago he was allowed to pray at the Mausoleum of Imam Reza, one of the holiest Shiite shrines in Mashad in northeast Iran. He was also the only foreign figure Ahmadinejad invited to attend sessions of Iranian Cabinet.
At the time, Chavez’s “pilgrimage” to the shrine in Mashad provoked angry reaction from several Shiite clerics who claimed that, as a Socialist, Chavez was “an atheist” and thus should not have been allowed to “sully the sacred site” of the Imam.
Ahmadinejad rejected the claim by depicting Chavez as “a thoroughly pious believer” who used Socialist themes and jargon solely for political purposes.
The Iran-Venezuela alliance against the United States started in 2001, when Iran’s then-President Muhammad Khatami paid a state visit to Caracas. Relations grew even closer when Ahmadinejad took office and launched his “global project” for “a world without America and Israel.”
Apart from coordinating policies as members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Iran and Venezuela joined forces to help anti-American politicians gain power in Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Paraguay. They also pumped in petrodollars to prevent the collapse of the Cuban economy.
Chavez also acted as intermediary between the Iranian regime and a number of Latin American revolutionary groups, including the FARC in Colombia and the Sendero Luminoso in Peru. The two nations also co-sponsored a number of international conferences to propagate the ideas of anti-American revolutionaries from all over the world.
Thanks to Chavez, Venezuela became a key economic and trade partner of Iran. As estimated by the media in Tehran, direct investment by the Islamic Republic in Venezuela amounted to $12 billion in 2011, more than 70 percent of all Iranian investment in the Americas.
While supplying weapons to Chavez, Iran has also helped Venezuela set up an armament industry of its own. And state-owned Iranian companies built thousands of low-cost housing units to rehouse some inhabitants of the shantytowns that surround Caracas.
In exchange, Chavez helped the Khomeinist regime in Tehran realize its old dream of leading the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, or NAM. For the first time, the Islamic Republic last year hosted a NAM summit, at which Ahmadinejad was elected as rotating president for three years.
More importantly, perhaps, Chavez helped Tehran “find its way” in Latin America and build a network of Hezbollah units in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Honduras, mostly among Shiites of Syrian and Lebanese origin.
But Chavez failed to deliver on another promise, to have an Iranian named as secretary-general of OPEC. The move was defeated by an alliance of OPEC members led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
With Chavez gone, the Islamic Republic loses its strongest foreign ally. Even if the Chavistas manage to hang on to power in Caracas for some time, none could replace the late president’s charismatic hold on a large segment of Venezuelan society.
Chavez created a movement but not a structured political party. Even if the movement doesn’t fall apart, some of its components may not share his visceral anti-Americanism. They may also find a partnership with Tehran not worth pursuing at a time when the Khomeinist regime itself is heading for yet another crisis.