{"id":180198,"date":"2018-12-08T16:40:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T16:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180198"},"modified":"2018-12-10T05:38:57","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T05:38:57","slug":"will-iran-warships-in-venezuela-cause-alarm-this-is-going-to-bother-14-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180198","title":{"rendered":"Will Iran warships in Venezuela cause alarm? \u2018This is going to bother 14 countries\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antonio Maria Delgado — Miami Herald Dec 8, 2018<\/h1>\n
\"Iran's<\/a>

Iran’s recently unvieled Sahand. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

An announcement that Iran may deploy new-generation warships to Venezuelan waters is being regarded by analysts as the mother of all provocations because it could alter the region\u2019s geopolitical balance and almost certainly disturb the U.S. government.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe arrival of these Iranian ships would upset the regional order,\u201d said Rocio San Miguel, president of Control Ciudadano, a non-government organization that monitors Venezuela\u2019s armed forces. \u201cThis is going to bother all 14 countries that have borders with Venezuela and will generate an undesirable situation,\u201d she added in a telephone interview from Spain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amid the growing tensions between Washington and Tehran, the Iranian government last week launched a destroyer, built in the Islamic country, with stealth properties that allow it to avoid radar detection.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one of its first official comments on the new Sahand destroyer \u2014 which can carry helicopters, fire torpedoes and shoot down airplanes \u2014 Iran said it could deploy two or three of them to Venezuela.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur plans for the near future include sending two or three ships, with special helicopters, to Venezuela on a South American mission that could last for five months,\u201d the deputy commander of the Iranian navy, Rear Admiral Touraj Hassani Moqaddam, was quoted as saying in a Reuters news agency report.<\/span><\/p>\n

Venezuela has become an important strategic ally of Iran over the past 20 years of Chavista rule, and the two countries have signed economic and military agreements valued in the billions of dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n

San Miguel said that despite the agreements, none of the joint projects have been successful.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if the Tehran announcement proves correct, that could prove to be very negative for both countries, warned Mart\u00edn Rodil, an expert on Iran-Venezuela relations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is extremely dangerous. It\u2019s crazy to send three warships to the U.S. backyard,\u201d Rodil said from Washington D.C. \u201cIf it happens, the only thing it will do is that Washington will send an aircraft carrier to the Venezuelan coast.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIran today is the most critical point of U.S. foreign policy. It\u2019s one of the issues that President Donald Trump has spent the most time on, and sending those ships would be a provocation the administration could not ignore,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump withdrew the United States from an international accord signed by the Obama administration to contain Iran\u2019s nuclear program, and has reintroduced economic sanctions on Tehran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump argued that the accord has grave errors because it did not halt Iran\u2019s development of ballistic missiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite warnings from Washington that Iran continues to be a danger to the Western world, the Nicolas Maduro regime in Caracas has continued to maintain warm relations with Tehran.<\/span><\/p>\n

That relationship, on top of Tehran\u2019s relations with Havana, Moscow and more recently Istanbul, has been generating fears in Venezuela, especially because of the growing tensions between those countries and the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opposition Grand National Alliance has alleged that Maduro is willing to create an international crisis if needed to strengthen his relationship with those countries at a time when the rest of the international community has been denouncing his regime for human rights violations, rarely seen levels of corruption and the destruction of Venezuelan democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese actions, which are part of a script written in Cuba, would be designed to create an international conflict with the goal of keeping Maduro in power after Jan. 10, when his presidential term is supposed to expire, in exchange for handing control of our national territory to Russia, China, Cuba, Iran and other countries,\u201d the Alliance said in a communique.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaduro knows he\u2019s cornered. The U.S. government and the president-elect of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, have clearly said that they will act to reestablish democracy in Venezuela,\u201d it added.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe foreign minister of Chile announced publicly that several nations will end their recognition of the Venezuelan regime starting on Jan. 10,\u201d it added. \u201cMore and more evidence turns up abroad about the gross corruption among the leaders and allies of the (Chavista) revolution; and Maduro suffered a humiliating defeat during his recent visit to Mexico.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US media describes reports that an Iranian warship may be deployed in Venezuelan waters as \u201cthe mother of all provocations\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180198"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180202,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180198\/revisions\/180202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}