What Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran |
In a city awash with visual propaganda, one mural in Caracas is especially striking for the western visitor. In it, Jesus Christ stands alongside Imam Mahdi, a prophesied messianic figure who many Muslims believe will appear with him during the End Times to restore peace and justice to the world.
There is only one Venezuelan – the late president Hugo Chavez – among the six smaller figures on the mural. Three are Iranian, including Qasem Soleimani, a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force, killed by a US airstrike in 2020. One is an Iraqi commander killed in the same strike, and the last is Lebanese, Imad Mughniyeh, a founder of Islamic Jihad in Lebanon and number two in Hezbollah until his assassination in 2008. ‘The way of the martyrs is derived from the way of the divine prophets,’ reads the legend.
The ‘Mural de Salvadores’ is a reminder of the close ties – spanning military, security and terrorist (Hezbollah) co-operation, sanctions-busting, money-laundering, drug-smuggling, cyber, technical assistance, cultural centres, educational scholarships, ideological and industrial support, even car manufacturing – which have steadily strengthened between the revolutionary regimes in Caracas and Tehran in recent years. Donald Trump’s spectacular decapitation of the Nicolas Maduro government has just dealt this anti-imperialist alliance, a key part of Tehran’s much-vaunted ‘Axis of Resistance’, a powerful blow from which it is unlikely to recover.
It deals Tehran’s much-vaunted ‘Axis of Resistance’ a powerful blow from which it is unlikely to recover
The love-in between Iran and Venezuela dates back to the beginning of this century. The rabble-rousing Chavez, mastermind of a Bolivarian Revolution which helped transform a rich democracy into an impoverished dictatorship, visited Iran several times, with his counterpart President Mohammad Khatami returning the compliment. President Ahmadinejad continued the affair with Chavez, the two men signing more than 270 bilateral deals and regularly declaring brotherly love.
In 2006, Chavez pledged that Venezuela would ‘stay by Iran at any time and under any condition’. Ahmadinejad called Chavez ‘a brother and trench mate’, a relationship commemorated........