Ahmadinejad and Chavez: “Love is in the air” · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Last week, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez made his fourth visit to Tehran in two years to sign more economic agreements with Iran. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Chavez, say they “admire” each other. Ahmadinejad calls Iran a second home for the Venezuelan president, and Chavez offers support to the Iranian government.
Last year, several left wing Iranian students and blogs criticized the friendly relations between “socialist” president Chavez and the Islamic Republic, where thousands of socialist militants were executed in the past.
Jomhour, a well-known blogger from Iran and Anthony Loewenstein, a blogger and writer from Australia, wrote about the Chavez-Ahmadinejad relationship and Nikahang, a leading cartoonist and blogger, published the cartoon above.
Which peace, what security?
Jomhour says [Fa] that Ahmadinejad after having met with Chavez, exclaimed: “We have plans to extend peace and security for all nations.”
The blogger writes:
it seems that the meaning of peace and security get really changed or redefined! How Ahmadinejad and Chavez can bring security and peace to other nations when they impose problems and danger on their own people! …In these two States, words do not mean what they should. When Ahmadinejad claims that there is absolute freedom in Iran, and security and peace will be extended to other nations, it sounds like a joke.
The blogger says Chavez has created problems for democracy and freedom in his country, and that Ahmadinejad’s government violates basic human rights and represses regular civil society activists.
“Shameful”
Anthony Loewenstein writes:
During my visit to Iran in June this year, I noted the unhealthy relationship between the Latin American left and the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The international Left have remained generally quiet on this issue, refusing to chastise Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for cosying up to the Islamic Republic.
My friend, journalist Rodrigo Acuna, has expanded on this argument:
“Although it might be natural for Venezuela, as a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, to have political and trade relations with another OPEC country like Iran, awarding Ahmadinejad the Collar of the Order of the Liberator — Venezuela’s highest honour for visiting dignitaries — as Chávez did in September last year, is not only embarrassing, it is shameful.”
He adds, “for Venezuela’s hard-core supporters in the international Left however, the singing President can do no wrong. The words ‘contradictions’ and ‘inconsistencies’ are not a part of their vocabulary.”