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Stop us if this sounds familiar: An antagonistic South American strongman invites one of America’s worst enemies to build long-range missiles in his country, sending the region — and damn near the world — to the brink.
Hugo Chavez apparently would love nothing more than to follow his buddy Fidel down that path. A German newspaper is reporting that Chavez has invited Iranian engineers to start work on a missile base on the Caribbean coast with 20-meter-deep rocket silos. Eeep!
The report by Die Welt, a major Berlin-based daily, cites “Western security sources” in writing that Chavez secretly met in February with the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Air Force, Amir al-Hadschisadeh.
The pair finalized a location for the missile base, Die Welt says, on the Peninsula de Paraguana, a jut of land 120 kilometers from the Colombian border. Engineers from the Iranian state-owned construction agency, Khatam al-Anbia, have begun preliminary work on the base.
It’s worth noting that most experts believe the base is a bid to make a rudimentary missile defense system for Caracas, and — unlike Fidel’s tet-a-tet with the Soviets — there won’t be any nukes involved. (Neither Venezuela nor Iran have nuclear technology just yet, though Iran is trying.)
Also, Iran’s longest missiles can travel about 1500 km — still short of Miami, which is more than 2,000 kilometers from Venezuela’s coast.
But how can you not feel a little queasy at the idea of Mahmood Ahmadinejad building missiles that close to the U.S. — not to mention our own front yards here in the Magic City?
Let’s hope Obama can find a less exciting way to resolve this business than JFK.
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