Iran’s Fellow Traveler in Mexico City President López Obrador seems to be playing footsie with Iranian allies. By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
The high cost of declining American power in the world is being felt in the Middle East and Ukraine. But it doesn’t stop there. Iran is moving into the Western Hemisphere with no effective pushback from Washington. The latest trouble comes from the U.S.’s North American neighbor, Mexico.
In response to a U.S. request that Mexico set up migrant-processing centers funded by Washington, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said no earlier this month. Instead, he proposed a regional summit, excluding the U.S. and Canada, to discuss the migration crisis.
Last week, at the gathering with representatives of 10 Latin American governments, Mr. López Obrador gave President Biden the middle finger. Not literally, but the effect was the same.
A photo taken at the meeting features a smiling Mr. López Obrador with pro-Iranian dictators Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro alongside Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, a former terrorist and a card-carrying Israel hater.
Honduras’s President Xiomara Castro, a Cuba sympathizer and wife of Manuel Zelaya, the former Honduran president who famously tried to extend his elected term with help from Hugo Chávez, was also in the picture. So too was Haiti’s acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
This gang of six, according to the Spanish daily El Pais, were the heads of state who drafted the communique that emerged from the AMLO-organized conclave held in the state of Chiapas. It blames U.S. sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela for the migration crisis and demands they be lifted unconditionally. The group also wants debt restructuring. Mr. López Obrador used the event to complain that the U.S. spends too much on defense and not enough to help its neighbors.
It’s tempting to make fun of the snapshot of the caudillos, lined up in their crisp white Guayabera shirts; Ms. Castro in a green pantsuit. The group looks straight out of central casting for a parody about a banana republic. They get no points for originality either, by asking for more money and credit from Uncle Sam while weaponizing migration to try to get it.
Venezuela destroyed its petroleum industry long before the U.S. halted oil purchases from the country and prohibited American investment there. Cuba can buy all the food, medicine and telecommunications equipment it wants from the U.S. and can get almost anything else it needs from the rest of the world. But it has to pay Americans in cash, which is a problem for a bankrupt regime with a deadbeat reputation.
The sanctions claim isn’t serious. But AMLO’s coziness with Havana, Caracas and Bogotá, all of which have links to Tehran, is deeply troubling. The U.S. is teetering on the brink of war with totalitarians in the Middle East, and there was a time in the not-so-distant past that Mexico was on the side of democracy. Even if Mexico has given up on human rights, it isn’t in the country’s interest to undermine the stability of its largest trading partner. Nevertheless Mr. López Obrador seems to be playing footsie with the amigos of the mullahs.
Tehran already has its teeth sunk into Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In February, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited all three. Bolivia has deepened its political and security ties with Iran since 2007 and in July the two sides signed a bilateral defense agreement.
As far back at 2015 Peruvian political and security analyst Dardo López-Dolz testified on Capitol Hill about the growing influence of Hezbollah and Iranian cells inside his country. Earlier this month, Peru’s head of antiterrorism alleged that Iran has recruited and trained Peruvians who have engaged in violent extremism against the democratic government of President Dina Boluarte. Mr. López Obrador has refused to recognize Ms. Boluarte, who replaced former President Pedro Castillo after he tried to seize absolute power by closing Congress.
Iranian access to the region is growing through countries where socialists get to power. The Biden administration preferred left-wing Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva to the conservative Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s 2022 presidential election. Shortly after Team Biden’s ideological ally was back in office in Brasilia, he let two Iranian warships dock in Rio for a week.
Mr. Petro, whose progressivism is also favored at the White House, is even more of a problem for U.S. security interests. Iran’s soft-power network has been getting closer to the government in Bogotá, which has been entertaining Iranian ambassadors from around the region. Mr. Petro has refused to condemn the Hamas attacks and has called Israel’s response “genocide.”
Colombia has been facilitating migration from South America through the Darién Gap and, like Venezuela and Nicaragua, it may be helping Middle Easterners who want to inflict harm on Americans get into the region so they can get to the U.S. border. Mexico’s alignment with these Iranian proxies is a warning to Washington.
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