Ahmadinejad's trip

I was interviewed by a reporter for Al Jazeera this morning on Ahmadinejad's trip to Latin America. Anyone who's been reading this blog at all knows more or less what I said. Really, the more I think about it, the more I feel it is much ado about nothing. We'll hear lots of bluster about the empire and about grand development projects that will never materialize. Then in the U.S. we'll hear lots of bluster about Iran trying to attack the United States from Latin American bases.

Venezuela, of course, is the centerpiece of the trip. When push comes to shove, though, neither Iran nor Venezuela has much to gain from each other beyond symbolic alliance against the United States, and that can only take you so far. Neither president has domestic support for sticking his neck out too far for the other.