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Last week, Iran rolled out the red carpet for an unlikely dignitary.
The visitor wasn’t Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the spiritual head of the
Hezbollah Shi’ite militia Iran created in Lebanon in the early 1980s and
has sustained since. Nor was it Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s
newly-reconfirmed prime minister, whom—having failed to supplant in
favor of a more pliable politician in recent elections—Tehran is now
actively courting. Rather, the head-of-state that garnered Tehran’s most
lavish diplomatic reception was none other than Venezuelan strongman
Hugo Chavez, who over the past decade has emerged as one of Iran’s most
dependable international allies.

The contemporary partnership between Tehran and Caracas dates back to
the spring of 2001, when Venezuela’s president, then still solidifying
his anti-imperialist and anti-American credentials, made his inaugural
trek to the Islamic Republic to “prepare the road for peace, justice, stability, and progress for the 21st century.”
Since that time, cooperation between the two countries has blossomed
into one of the cardinal tenets of Venezuelan foreign policy. Indeed,
during his most recent visit to Iran (his ninth to date), Chavez >>>