Venezuelans are celebrating the capture of Marxist dictator Nicolás Maduro, but in far-off Iran, the embattled leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran had good reason to view the event with considerable disquiet. The Iranian Foreign Ministry called the capture “a gross violation of the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
It never, of course, used any similar language to describe its own financing and arming of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and the Assad regime, all for the purpose of committing gross violations of Israel’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity. But behind all its present braggadocio, it’s clear that the removal of Maduro has dealt the Iranian mullahs a severe blow: They’ve lost one of their best friends.
The former deputy commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Ray Palumbo and Yoni Tobin, a senior policy analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), wrote in late November that “the Iran-Venezuela strategic partnership has matured into a robust, multi-dimensional alliance, impacting both regional security and US foreign policy calculations. Iran and Venezuela’s cooperation spans the social, political, diplomatic, economic, and military domains.”
This cooperation goes back far longer than most people realize. Palumbo and Tobin note that the partnership between Iran and Venezuela began in the 1950s, long before either one was a rogue state. Then in 2005, Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor and the man who wrecked Venezuela in the first place, declared that Venezuela and the Islamic Republic of Iran were “brothers.”
In 2007, Chávez and Iran’s then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad formed an “anti-imperialist alliance” that was obviously directed solely at the United States. Over the years, say Palumbo and Tobin, the Islamic Republic has established “a robust foothold in Latin America, constructing a dense network involving both direct state-to-state links and the integration of proxy actors like Hezbollah. The bilateral relationship has been solidified by defense pacts, including a 20-year agreement signed in 2022, and joint manufacturing of Iranian drones and weapons on Venezuelan soil, including potential deployments of loitering munitions and jamming devices.”
All of that, of course, was directed against the United States, and there was much more as well. Latin Times reported in Jan. 2025 that the Islamic Republic was “increasing its military presence in Venezuela, with officials and personnel.” Iran also “established a drone development base at the El Libertador air base in Venezuela,” where unnamed aerial vehicles (UAV) were also produced and Iranians trained Venezuelan military personnel. The Maduro regime hoped to sell those drones to other leftist countries in Latin America.
In March 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned that Iran had placed military assets in Venezuela that could be used to strike targets inside the United States, such as Miami, Florida. In July 2022 came the curious and thought-provoking announcement from Iran’s state-controlled Tasnim News Agency that “Venezuela has allowed Iran to use one million hectares of its farmland for cultivation, an Iranian official said.” Gosh, what do you think they might have been cultivating, and for consumption in which country?
There was also talk about plans being made for the Iranian mullahs to be able to flee to Venezuela if the bell ever finally tolled for them in Tehran, but now, as the pro-freedom protests in Iran continue, they’re going to have to look around for another place that has room for a bunch of remorseless tyrants with blood on their hands.
Related: Trump Speaks Out About the Protests in Iran — and Issues a Warning
Meanwhile, the circle has tightened yet again around the Islamic Republic of Iran. On Oct. 6, 2023, it had the weak Shi’ite government in Iraq, Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. It looked as if its plans to assert itself as the Islamic world’s dominant power were humming along nicely, and then Old Joe Biden sweetened the pot even more by sending the mullahs billions as they stepped up their jihad against Israel.
Now, the Islamic Republic of Iran is almost completely isolated on the global stage, and its own people hate it and want to bring it to an end. All lovers of freedom can pray and hope that the Ayatollah Khamenei will soon suffer a fate much like that of his friend Nicolás Maduro.
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