UANI Resources: Iranian Air Bridge To Maduro Regime Enriching Tehran, Enhances Influence In South America

(New York, N.Y.) – Iran is jockeying for greater influence in Venezuela by supplying the Maduro regime with fuel and technical assistance to revive its spiraling economy, including utilizing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked Mahan Air as an air bridge. In return, Venezuela has tapped into its gold reserves, sending an estimated $500 million in gold bars to Tehran via Mahan Air. In response, the U.S. State Department has called on all countries to ban Mahan Air – which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2011 and denied landing rights by all of mainland Europe – to “avoid COVID-19 and sanction risk”.

The support Iran is providing the Maduro regime is a continuation of the significant resources Tehran has expended throughout South America to strengthen its global footprint and bolster the fighting capabilities of proxy terrorist forces like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which operates freely in Venezuela under Maduro. United Against Nuclear Iran’s (UANI) resources, Iran’s Ideological Expansion and Iran’s Malign Intelligence Activities, outlines the efforts undertaken by the Iranian regime to expand its presence in the Western Hemisphere.

Iran’s ties to South America have accelerated in recent years due to the burgeoning of its alliance with the leftist, populist, anti-imperialist bloc, Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA), which was founded by former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The ALBA project has been characterized by its member nations’ desire to supplant U.S. dominance in the region, and in Iran, they found a willing anti-American strategic partner.

Much like Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the “Bolivarian revolution” led by Chavez seeks to “challenge the Western world’s system of rule of law and representative democracy, and seeks to replace it with a new authoritarian model of governance. The purpose of this model is to establish a “new world order” – one in which Latin America’s transformation is simply one chapter of a global revolution. Ostensibly, Iran’s Islamic Revolution is another such chapter.

To read UANI’s resource, Iran’s Ideological Expansion, please click here.

To read UANI’s resource, Iran’s Malign Intelligence Activities, please click here.

To read UANI’s resource, Iran’s Misuse of Civilian Aircraft, please click here.

To explore UANI’s website Eye on Hezbollah, go to Hezbollah.org or please click here.

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