Terrorist team-up: Iran is the new locus of the clash between East and West. But with its ties to Venezuela, the Middle Eastern power is extending its dangerous influence to the Western Hemisphere.(IRAN)

On September 17, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the oil-rich South American nation of Venezuela. The visit further cemented the already-cozy relations between the two nations. Earlier, on July 30, Iran awarded Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez with the Islamic Republic Medal, Iran's highest award. On that occasion Ahmadinejad was effusive in his praise for the Venezuelan leader. Chavez, he said, "has resisted imperialism for years and has defended the interests of his and other Latin American countries."

The budding alliance between the two nations solidified with the recent reciprocal visit of Ahmadinejad to Venezuela. The two nations announced that they would set up a munitions plant and an automobile plant in Venezuela and would cooperate to build housing and explore for oil and other energy resources. "Iran is generously transferring technology to us," Chavez announced shortly before the Iranian president arrived. For his part, Ahmadinejad signaled that the relationship between the two nations was strategically important for Iran. Claiming that Iran and Venezuela are both "heroic nations" with "two revolutions that are giving each other a hand," Ahmadinejad noted: "Today we have thoughts, objectives and interests in common.... We must be united to be able to make these ideas reality with the aim of achieving justice and peace in the world."

Despite the pleasant talk coming from the Iranian and Venezuelan leaders, the emerging partnership between Iran and Venezuela is a new and menacing threat to the stability and security of the United States. Islamo-Fascist Iran is the most dangerous state in the Middle East, and Marxist Venezuela, led by Fidel Castro cohort Hugo Chavez, rivals Cuba as most dangerous state in the West. Both have vast reserves of oil and treasuries bursting at the seams with ready cash, both have ties to terrorism, and both are bent on the destruction of the United States.

From the Soviet Playbook

Ahmadinejad has said that he thinks Iran should "lead the world." If he is serious and not just posturing, then Iran has to find a way to check U.S. military and diplomatic power when and if it is brought to bear against Iranian interests and pretensions. The situation is not unlike that faced by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Faced with a U.S. presence in Europe, the Soviet Union needed a Western Hemisphere base from which it could threaten U.S. interests. Castro's takeover of Cuba gave the Soviets such a base, and they quickly began constructing missile sites on the island, leading to the Cuban missile crisis.

Iran today is in an even more vulnerable situation. The United States has troops, weapons, and unlimited basing capability in Iraq and more of the same on the other side of Iran in Afghanistan. Moreover, U.S. naval power can turn the Persian Gulf into a U.S. lake at a whim. From Iran's perspective, it needs a foothold in the West to counter U.S. theater supremacy in the Middle East. In this sense, Venezuela gives Iran what Cuba gave to the Soviet Union, though in Iran's case, missiles aren't needed.

Venezuela has another weapon: oil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the United States imports 1.4 million barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, making that nation our fourth largest supplier of oil. Venezuela's Chavez has long viewed oil as a weapon. According to Nikolas Kozloff, senior research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, before coming to power Chavez said, "Oil is a geopolitical weapon and these imbeciles who govern us don't realize the power they have, as an oil-producing country." Moreover, Chavez has threatened to use his oil weaponry in the past. According to Kozloff, Chavez has warned "that if it occurs to the United States, or to someone there, to invade us, that they can forget ...