By James Neilson

for The Herald

Throughout the 20th century, Latin America managed to steer clear of the murderous conflicts that killed tens of millions of people in other parts of the planet. Brazil sent troops to help the Allies in the Second World War and the region saw some minor skirmishes between proxies during the Cold War, but it experienced nothing like the wholesale devastation that was suffered by Europeans and Asians or, though their respective homelands were less affected, by North Americans and Australians.

Next time round it may be different. Thanks to Venezuela’s belligerent president Hugo Chávez, Iran’s holy warriors are in a position to establish a bridgehead in the Western Hemisphere that in the by no means improbable event of a big war in the Middle East would be sure to attract the attention of the United States. That presumably is one reason why the US military is so interested in having access to bases in next-door Colombia, and why Chávez sporadically speaks of going to war. There is also the suspicion that the Brazilian government’s chumminess towards Iran could lead to the proliferation of jihadi cells in Latin America’s biggest country.

Argentina’s leaders, still traumatized by the humiliating economic collapse of 2001 and 2002, have done their best to curry favour with Chávez and have resigned themselves to playing second fiddle to Brazil. But apart from her traditional sparring partner Great Britain, Iran is the only country Argentina is seriously at odds with. Were it not for that, the humble diplomatic strategy adopted by the government would not raise too many problems, but as things stand Cristina Kirchner must pretend there is nothing at all peculiar about the fact that her country’s two best friends are also bidding to become Iran’s closest allies.

In the endlessly fractious Middle East, people are fond of repeating the saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But can my enemy’s friend be my friend too? Argentina’s government seems to think so. That is why Cristina and her aides have done their best to minimize the significance of their Brazilian counterparts’ willingness to embrace Iran’s sinister regime even though it officially accuses it of planning and financing the terrorist attacks first on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and later on the headquarters of the AMIA where 86 Argentines died. But then they could hardly have warned Lula that warmly welcoming the yobbish Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his domains would severely damage relations with Argentina; in that case, they would have to break with the Iranians’ most enthusiastic lobbyist, Chávez.

Lula has let himself be carried away by the idea that as one of what the Goldman Sachs boys call the “BRICs” Brazil, Russia, India and China his country is destined to bestride the world stage like a colossus and so should start getting used to playing an assertive role. But while the prospects before Brazil, blessed as she is by a large population and huge natural resources, look bright enough, she still has a long way to go before she can afford to side with a rogue state such as Iran that could soon become the epicentre of the biggest worldwide convulsion we have seen since 1945. Even if the US and Israel decide that letting Iran build a nuclear arsenal would be marginally less dangerous for them than doing whatever it takes to prevent it, that would not mean an end to the challenge posed to the rest of humanity by the Shiite version of the Islamic Revolution. It would simply open a new and far more dangerous chapter.

US President Barack Obama’s policy of being nice to Ahmadinejad and company in the hope they would reciprocate appears to have failed dismally. So too, for that matter, has his attempt to ingratiate himself with the Arabs by bullying Israel, a country that may well be tiny in comparison with many of its neighbours, let alone such giants as the US, China, India and Russia, but which also happens to be something of a technological superpower whose intellectual production is every but as valuable as oil.
As the word gets round that US is in an introspective mood and Obama has no interest in throwing his weight around, other countries, among them Israel, feel forced to make their own arrangements. One alternative that is being discussed is that the Israelis could make use of their scientific prowess to forge alliances with Russia or India to develop weaponry that would be just as advanced as anything the Pentagon disposes of, or even more so. Since the US depends on its technological edge, turning against Israel in order to please her oil-rich enemies would not necessarily be a very smart move.

If the Middle Eastern cauldron reaches boiling point, as it well could in the near future, Latin American countries will have to decide what they should best do. Like Venezuela’s Chávez, Brazil’s current leaders apparently imagine that it is in their interest to cuddle up to Iran and treat her as a misunderstood victim of North American prejudice. Having been at the receiving end of the Islamic Republic’s aggressive world agenda, Argentina cannot be expected to share their attitude so, hard as the Kirchners may try to stay close to Chávez and Lula, she may soon feel obliged to break with them and go her own way.