The occupying Islamic Republic in Iran’s Influence Operations in South America
Alberto Nisman was assassinated in his apartment on Sunday, January 18, 2015, five years ago. He worked as a federal prosecutor, assigned for being the chief investigator of the 1994 car bombing of the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, that killed 85 people and was the worst terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Prosecutor Nisman was killed the day before he was scheduled to deliver a detailed testimony to the National Argentine Congress about his decision to charge Argentine president with covering up terror investigations in order to appease Islamic regime in Iran. Nisman was killed for investigating about AMIA Jewish Center attack in Buenos Aires and the Islamic regime’s activities there and he was about to bring the perpetrators and all involved to justice. But the murderous regime in Iran’s hired assassins killed him.
When we look at the map of the Middle East, we don’t need to be an expert in geopolitics to realize that Iran’s influence has increased over the last few years while the United States’ role has diminished.
Terrorist regimes use infiltration as a means to achieve their goals; the Iranian regime is no exception. In a 500-page indictment, issued in May 2013, the late Dr. Alberto Nisman — an Argentine prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of the largest Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires — contended that the Argentine government had sought the arrangement as part of a trade pact with Iran. Nisman provided evidence of the extent of Iran’s infiltration, intelligence, and terrorist network across Latin America, especially in Venezuela, which had vast deposits of uranium, as well as other states.
According to Nisman, Islamic regime in Iran has sought to infiltrate the countries of Latin America and install secret intelligence stations with the goal of committing, fomenting, and fostering acts of international terrorism in concert with its goal to export the revolution. With the growth of Iranian embassies in Latin America — and their “cultural” activities expanded exponentially in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and El Salvador — Iranian film festivals, book fairs, youth festivals, and other “cultural” activities are often used to spread propaganda — and — to spot and assess potential recruits to join the Islamic revolution.
While it is subtle,and often under the radar, Iran’s “cultural” outreach has been significant over the last decade, and is growing in both size and scope. One of the most visible examples of this outreach is their Spanish language, 24-hour news broadcast, Hispan-TV,which is operated by the larger, state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcaster (IRIB). Launched in 2012, the Iranian network has grown to broadcast in at least 16 countries throughout Latin America, often in conjunction with what is known as counter-hegemonic news media in the region — namely the Venezuela-based TeleSUR. This media network provides Iran with a large megaphone to advance its influence and information operations in the region.
The West must not be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm. For 40 years, the Islamic regime of Iran has relentlessly pursued a global Islamic mission which was engineered by jihadis Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s founding dictator. Khomeini said in his own words, “We will export our revolution to the entire world.” And, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and Quds Forces have been resolutely dedicated to that end. Iran’s former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander (2007 to 2019), Mohammad Ali Ja’afari, clearly stated this goal. He said, “Our Imam (Khomeini) did not limit the Islamic Revolution to this country … Our duty is to prepare the way for an Islamic world government.”
Reinvigorating a greater North America is vital to any anti-access strategy against Iran regime and Hezbollah’s advancement in the Western Hemisphere and to protect the peace and security of the world, the cancer — of the Islamic Republic of Iran — must be removed, before it’s too late!
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A must read article from 2012: Iranian influence operations in South America Part I & II via El Paiz
http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2012/06/23/actualidad/1340465739_921466.html
Part I: ‘Iran sets about the conquest of Latin America’ June 23, 2012 Tehran uses hundreds of diplomats and constant visits and military cooperation, in order to attract the region to it.In the past six months, Iran has been making an offensive on all fronts — on the commercial, military, diplomatic and information fronts — with Latin America as the scene, and without minding the cost.
Tehran considers the region as one of the points of principal support, in order to overcome their growing international isolation which it is experiencing as a consequence of its nuclear program, and it has decided to act on all levels, multiplying its presence in a region of the world which until very recently remained outside its radius of action.
The Iranian strategy is extensive, giving as much importance to the offices as to the streets. For example, a few weeks ago the inhabitants of Quito [Ecuador] found themselves surprised by the appearance of posters inviting to an act with zero tradition in their country: the commemoration of the anniversary of the death of ayatollah Khomeini.
‘An entire life dedicated to the people and the revolution’, proclaimed the announcements. During the act, celebrated on May 31 at the Auditorio del Consejo Nacional de Pichincha, in the presence of Iranian diplomats, the Iranian leader was compared to [freedom fighter Simon] Bolívar. The act was recorded by Hispan TV, the satellite tv channel which the Iranian regime inaugurated in December, transmitting 24 hours each day news in Spanish, and whose principal target group is the Latin American public.
Part II, June 24,2012 Iranian influence operations in South America
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On an intermediary level is where the Iranian diplomats are acting, who have multiplied their activity and presence. This is particularly the case in Bolivia, where Iran has 145 diplomats accredited, more than the rest of the [total] diplomatic corps accredited in La Paz. Spain, with all of its historic relations and its commercial interests has a representation oscillating between 8 and 10 diplomats. Western diplomatic sources estimate that the number of Iranian diplomats accredited to Venezuela is even larger.
What is more important, the visits of high-ranking Iranian officials to the subcontinent are constant, and often are accompanied by economic advantages for the countries visited. Last Wednesday Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad participated at the Sustainable Development conference in Rio de Janeiro, only to supplement his visit by a mini-round trip of South America, announced a few days ahead. It is his second such tour in six months, and the fourth of a high-ranking Iranian official during this same period.
In January the Iranian ruler already visited Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua. In may, it was the turn of vice-president Ali Saeidlo who made the same tour, on top including Bolivia. During their Nicaraguan stopover, the Iranian diplomats announced the cancellation of a debt which Managua had with Tehran. Days earlier, Iranian defence minister Ahmad Vahidi had visited Bolivia, who inaugurated the Escuela de Defensa de la Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA), the organism of regional integration established through the personal initiative of Hugo Chávez.An international arrest warrant is hanging over Vahidi, for his implication in the 1992 and 1994 Buenos Aires attacks against the embassy of Israel and the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, which resulted in a total of 115 deaths. During their visits, the Iranian representatives are being accompanied by Kanbiz Jalali, a diplomat possessing a vast experience of Latin America and being the responsible of the Directorate General for Latin America, created by the Iranian foreign affairs ministry.
Tehran is emphasizing especially the subject of defence. In less than 24 hours, it signed a treaty on military aid with Bolivia and tolerated Chávez’ announcement in a sense that Venezuela is constructing unmanned planes, under the supervision of Iranian engineers. Ramin Keshavarz, prominent member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is charged to supervise the project.
Tehran, however, is not finding facilities for its diplomatic offensive in all the countries [of the region]. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brasil caused polemics in the south American country, where some deputies demanded that the entry of the Persian ruler be barred. ‘This is not possible. This is not a question of the Brazilian government, but an act of the United Nations. It is exactly the same like when Ahmadinejad travels to New York to the general assembly of the UN’, explained a Brazilian diplomatic source, who underlined that ‘the policy of president Dilma Rousseff regarding Iran has not changed’. One of the first presidential acts of Rousseff — in office since January 2011 — was to distance herself drastically from the Iranian regime, thereby breaking with the policy of rapprochement initiated by her predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In fact, the Brazilian president refused to meet Ahmadinejad in private, despite Iranian insistence.
Brazil is not the only obstacle. The ambassador proposed for Colombia could not obtain the approval of Bogotá, while in Argentina the official Iranian representation limits itself to just two diplomats without ambassador status, owed principally to the arrest warrant issued by the Argentinian judiciary against Iranian high-ranking officials, among whom the cited Vahidi and ex-president Alí Akbar Rafsanjani.
This diplomatic frostiness, however, has not impeded the commercial interchange to pass from zero to 400 million dollars in only four years, or that Iran since 2010 has been the second global purchaser of Argentinian soy.
Source: El Paiz Translation by Michal Laudahn
