By Dr. Jaime Suchlicki in
Foreign Policy:
From Havana to Tehran
The strange love affair between a theocracy and an atheistic dictatorship.On
Dec. 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced a dramatic change in
the United States’ policy toward Cuba, heralding the end of a Cold
War-era conflict that had begun to look increasingly anachronistic. The
benefits of the two longtime foes’ new and improved relationship remain
to be seen — but the contradictions involved are already obvious. Over
half a century of pursuing an aggressive anti-American foreign policy,
Cuba has made plenty of friends whom the United States considers
enemies, and Havana is unlikely to easily let go of its longtime allies.
These include Russia, Venezuela, and a variety of Arab dictators,
Islamic fundamentalist movements, and anti-Israeli terrorist
organizations. The list of Cuba’s unsavory friends also includes Iran — a
relationship of particular salience on the world stage today.
Communist
Cuba’s alliance with the Iran of the Ayatollahs dates to 1979, when
Fidel Castro became one of the first heads of state to recognize the
Islamic Republic’s radical clerics. Addressing then-Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khomeini, Castro insisted that there was “no contradiction
between revolution and religion,” an ecumenical principle that has
guided Cuba’s relations with Iran and other Islamic regimes. Over the
next two decades, Castro fostered a unique relationship between secular
communist Cuba and theocratic Iran, united by a common hatred of the
United States and the liberal, democratic West — and by substantial
material interests.
In
the early 1990s, Havana started to export biopharmaceutical products
for the Iranian health care system and trained Iranian scientists to use
them. By the end of the decade, it had moved beyond simple exports to
transferring medical biotechnology and, along with the technical
know-how, capabilities for developing and manufacturing industrial
quantities of biological weapons. In addition to training Iranian
scientists in Cuba and sending Cuban scientists and technicians to
Iran’s research centers, the state-run Center for Biotechnology and
Genetic Engineering established a joint-venture biotechnology production
plant near Tehran at a cost of $60 million, with Cuba providing the
intellectual capital and technology, and Iran providing the financing.
This facility, now under Iranian control, is believed to be “the most
modern biotechnology and genetic engineering facility of its type in the
Middle East.”
Iran has also benefited from its friendship with
Havana in more aggressive ways. Geographically, Cuba’s strategic
location enabled the Islamic Republic, on at least one occasion, to
clandestinely engage in electronic attacks against U.S.
telecommunications that posed a threat to the Islamic regime’s
censorship apparatus. In the summer of 2003, Tehran blocked signals from
a U.S. satellite that was broadcasting uncensored Farsi-language news
into the country at a time of rising unrest. Based on the satellite’s
location over the Atlantic, it would have been impossible for
Iranian-based transmissions to affect its signals. Ultimately, the
jamming was traced to a compound in the outskirts of Havana that had
been equipped with the advanced telecommunications technology capable of
disrupting the Los Angeles-based broadcaster’s programming across the
Atlantic. It is well known that Cuba has continuously upgraded its
ability to block U.S. broadcasts to the island, and hence, conceivably,
to jam international communications. Although the Cuban government would
later claim that Iranian diplomatic staff had operated out of the
compound without its consent, given that Cuba “[is] a fully police
state,” as Iran expert Safa Haeri has noted, “it is difficult to believe
the Iranians had introduced the sophisticated jamming equipment into
Cuba without the knowledge of the Cuban authorities,” much less utilized
it against U.S. targets without the knowledge of the Castro regime.
In
return for its services, Iran has compensated the Cuban government
directly. During the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), Tehran
offered Havana an initial 20 million euro annual credit line. Following
the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, Iran expanded this credit
line to 200 million euros for bilateral trade and investment projects.
At the same time, Havana was spearheading a campaign within the
Non-Aligned Movement to legitimize Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program as
an “inalienable right” of all developing nations. In June 2008
Ahmadinejad approved a record 500 million euro credit for the Castro
regime. From Iran’s perspective, Cuba deserves to be rewarded for its
“similarity in outlooks on international issues.”
In total, Cuba
has received the equivalent of over one billion euros in loans from
Tehran since 2005. With this financing, Cuba has begun to make critical
investments in the rehabilitation of dilapidated Soviet-era
infrastructure. Iran is funding some 60 projects ranging from the
acquisition of 750 Iranian-made rail cars to the construction of power
plants, dams, and highways. This infusion of Islamic capital has
strengthened the Cuban regime’s stability and reduced the risk of
economic collapse by adding a fourth financial pillar alongside oil from
Venezuela, bilateral trade credits from China and Russia, and corporate
capital from Canada, Latin America and the European Union.
The
election of the apparently more moderate Hassan Rouhani, the reduction
in the price of oil, and Iran’s involvement in the Middle East have
precluded additional credits to Cuba. Yet the relationship, as evidenced
by visits, cooperation in international organizations, and joint
support for Venezuela, has continued.
Tehran’s and Havana’s
shared interest in Venezuela is another source of potential concern to
the West. Venezuela’s strategic position and considerable resources make
it a potentially greater threat to U.S. interests in the region than
the one posed in the 1960s by the Castro regime. Venezuela’s alliances
with Iran, Syria, and other anti-American countries and its support for
terrorist groups, while representing a smaller threat, are as formidable
a challenge as the Cuba-Soviet alliance. And while Cuban support for
the regime in Caracas is fairly well known, Iran, too, has been offering
Venezuela technical assistance in the areas of defense, intelligence,
energy, and security. Iranian as well as Cuban personnel are advising,
protecting, and training Venezuela’s security apparatus.
Of more
strategic significance is the possibility that Iranian scientists are
enriching uranium in Venezuela for shipment to Iran. Venezuelan sources
have confirmed this possibility. Foreign intelligence services consulted
by the author acknowledged these rumors but are unable to confirm them.
If confirmed, these actions would violate U.N. sanctions as well as
U.S. security measures.
If the United States really intends to
expand its relations with Cuba, Washington needs to address Havana’s
troublesome alliances with rogue regimes — above all, its friendship
with Tehran. These alliances — as well as the desire of the Cuban
military to remain in power and transfer control to younger, but still
conservative, anti-American leaders — are a troubling sign that internal
liberalization will be slow and difficult. No matter how much
Washington may want to see a new and friendlier Cuba, the island
nation’s choice of allies says more about the future of this
relationship than any number of well-meaning declarations.
![NEOCASTRISMO [Hacer click en la imagen]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5jy0SZhMlaU/SsuPVOlq2NI/AAAAAAAAH1E/4xt2Bwd2reE/S150/ppo+saturno+jugando+con+sus+hijos.jpg)
