Venezuela Celebrates Iran

Venezuela thinks the Iranian dictatorship is awesome and celebrates its 35th anniversary. Of course, this has much less to do with the ridiculous rumors of Iranian presence in Latin America and much more with the fact that the shah was a product of stupid and counterproductive U.S. policy, and therefore Iran is attractive to Venezuela. It's unfortunate, though, to take this to the extreme of saying things like Iranians are now free of oppression.

Once again, Venezuela criticizes the United States but simply takes a foreign policy that is the exact mirror opposite of it, which unfortunately is also reprehensible. The U.S. lauds Middle Eastern dictatorship allies and Venezuela lauds Middle Eastern dictatorships that aren't U.S. allies. That few of these governments deserve anything but criticism doesn't seem to enter the debate.

The U.S. and Venezuela (and their supporters domestically) then take the left-right ideological dichotomy for U.S.-Latin American relations and just translate it to the Middle East, where it does not make any sense at all. Just depressing, really.