Iranian Warships Docking in Latin America Reflects New Axis of Power, Analysts Say
Iran appears to be making good on its claim to put warships in the Panama Canal before the end of 2023, but analysts say that’s just the beginning.
Last week, Brazil permitted two Iranian warships to moor off Rio de Janeiro’s famous beaches. The event occurred between Feb. 26 and March 4, causing a stir among democratic nations throughout the region.
Political and security insiders say the arrival of the warships is a consequence of a new wave of leftist leaders who’ve swept across Latin America in recent years, including Brazil’s new president.
And Iran is capitalizing on its strong ties to socialist regimes in the region.
Iranian, Russian, and Chinese warships during a joint military drill in the Indian Ocean on Jan. 21, 2022. (Iranian Army office/AFP via Getty Images)“The big picture here doesn’t look good,” Brazil’s former minister of foreign affairs, Ernesto Araujo, told The Epoch Times.
Araujo said it was alarming to see his native country roll out the red carpet for Iranian warships. “I’m very concerned as a Brazilian and as someone who has an idea of what Iran is up to in the world.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva—commonly known as Lula—embraced the arrival of the vessels IRIS Makran and IRIS Dena on Feb. 26 after more than a month’s delay.
The timing was no coincidence, but rather a strategic hold due to Lula’s plan to visit U.S. President Joe Biden on Jan. 13.
Documentation from the ministry of defense in Brazil shows the warships were originally authorized to enter the port of Rio de Janeiro on the same day as Lula’s Biden visit.
The U.S. Department of Treasury sanctioned both the Makran and the Dena on Feb. 3. Concurrently, Washington pressured Lula to deny the vessels entry to Brazilian waters.
Regardless, Lula granted port entry to the ships. His administration even doubled down by attending a celebration aboard the Dena on Feb. 28.
Araujo said multiple high-level Brazil officials within Lula’s regime attended the event, which a local media report confirmed. The party commemorated 120 years of diplomatic relations between Iran and Brazil.
Washington was already clued in on Iran’s intentions to put warships in America’s backyard.
In January, naval Rear Admiral Shahram Irani told the Tehran Times that Iran’s military would station warships at the Panama Canal before the end of the year. Irani said the maneuver is meant to “strengthen our maritime presence in international waters.”
“The army navy has been present in all the strategic straits in the world to date, and we have not been present in only two straits. We will be present in one of these straits this year … We are planning to be present in the Panama Canal,” Irani asserted.
Araujo isn’t the only Brazilian politician who’s not celebrating the unprecedented arrival of Iranian warships to Brazilian waters.
During an interview with The Epoch Times, former President Jair Bolsonaro said, “If I were president, these warships would not be there.”
But despite a clear disregard for U.S. security concerns by the Lula administration, the American response to the event was primarily neutral.
At a press briefing, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told The Epoch Times, “Countries are going to make their own decisions. The Monroe Doctrine is a legacy of history. It is not something that the United States espouses.”
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro looks on after a ceremony about the National Policy for Education at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on June 20, 2022. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)Price noted Brazil is a “close democratic partner of the United States,” but added, “warships like these have no place in the Western hemisphere, given the signal it sends.”
“We want to continue to work with our Brazilian partners to send the right message to Iran, to others who would pose a threat, pose a challenge to our collective interests around the world,” Price said.
When asked whether Brazil would be subject to U.S. sanctions for hosting the Makran and Dena, Price sidestepped the question.
Though some regional security analysts say a tepid Biden administration response and U.S. sanctions won’t hinder Iran’s plans in the West.
“Make no mistake, Iran is challenging [the] U.S. at home, on its own turf,” Irina Tsukerman, security analyst and the owner of Scarab Rising, told The Epoch Times.
“This ship in Panama signals Iran’s expanding reach, not only in terms of physical relations with these countries but its willingness to chase [the] United States out of its own neighboring vicinity,” Tsukerman said.
“It’s a demonstration of Iran’s growing influence and U.S. weakness and receding impact.”
She added Iran would do much more than pay an “occasional visit” to the region in the long run.
Regional analyst and author, Dr. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, agrees the arrival of Iranian warships is the harbinger of something bigger.
Chief among these is a shift of geopolitical priorities in the region.
“There is an evident process of institutionalization of Iran’s geopolitical presence in Latin America,” Boronat told The Epoch Times.
Step By Step
The Iranian government has been building alliances with sympathetic regimes in Latin America for decades.
This ranges from building nuclear facilities in countries with entrenched socialist governments to supporting the election campaigns of leftist leaders.
Back in 2012, a U.S. Senate assembly noted Iran’s growing influence in Latin America was a security red flag.
Countries clamoring for benefits like humanitarian aid and outside investment, such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, were particularly friendly with Iran.
In the report, the assembly called Iran’s relationship with Latin American nations in the region a “serious concern.”
“Iran has developed, in the last two decades, a clear strategy towards Latin America,” Boronat said. “The presence of Iran in Venezuela has occurred through a very solid commercial and financial exchange.”
During a January announcement, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro called for a “consolidation” of a new geopolitical power and regional integration.
He highlighted that with the support of Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil’s socialist regimes, a “special new hour is coming to unite the efforts and paths of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Maduro made his proclamation on Jan. 13, the same day Brazil granted initial permission for the Iranian warships to dock, and Lula met with Biden in the United States.
“Iran’s economic and recruitment activity in Latin America was always geared towards building up its proxies and strengthening local leftist movements,” Tsukerman said.
“What’s new is … [Iran’s] willingness to expand its naval capabilities. Thus, for the first time, showing a capacity for endangering maritime security, potentially blocking access to ports, and putting a target on U.S. vessels and others operating in the vicinity.”
Tsukerman added that a long-term Iranian presence in Latin America is the modern-day equivalent of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
In Brazil, Araujo believes Lula is playing a “double game” of sorts. The political equivalent of the old adage to have your cake and eat it too.
Araujo said Lula is trying to, “Be on good terms with both the democratic West and the totalitarian East.”
Security Red Flags
One week before Irani boasted the arrival of warships to the Panama Canal in the coming months, Iran’s President Raisi vowed revenge for the death of the country’s general Qasem Soleimani, who was killed during a U.S. drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020.
“The Americans must know that revenge for martyr Soleimani’s blood is certain, and the murderers and perpetrators will have no easy sleep,” Raisi said during a public speech in Tehran.
And then warships arrived in Brazil.
The incident highlights the increasing geopolitical ambitions of a confederacy of authoritarian powers. This includes Iran, China, and Russia, which appear to work closely to undermine the United States and the greater, rules-based international order.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited China in February and met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping. Both leaders have remained steadfast in their support of embattled Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Chinese state-owned media outlet China Daily said at the time, Xi and Raisi discussed a “comprehensive cooperation plan” and the expansion of their “strategic partnership.”
The language is similar to that used by the CCP to refer to its support of Russia.
Xi and Raisi issued a joint statement at the time urging that international sanctions against Iran be abandoned in exchange for compliance on nuclear nonproliferation issues. Likewise, the regime has demanded that international sanctions on Russia for its attempted conquest of Ukraine be abandoned and are “illegitimate.”
Leaders from the aforementioned authoritarian powers said last September they would “promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction.”
Boronat says America is facing a multifaceted threat from Iran, China, and Russia in its own backyard, all of which have solid alliances in Latin America.
“It’s an additional challenge amid the growing tension the United States faces with autocracies and dictatorships. Today, the main battlefield for democracies is Ukraine. There, the United States faces Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea,” he said.
“They are dictatorships with nuclear potential or with the aspiration to access it. Iranian warships in the Panama Canal pose a challenge far from that battlefield and close to the United States.”
