Argentina

There are legitimate territorial disputes, and then there is Argentina’s dispute with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.

The American position on the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic should be obvious.

The Falkland Islands seem to be popping up in the news a lot in the last month. There was the recent death of Sir Rex Hunt—the governor of the territory during the Argentine invasion—and his obituary must be read to be believed. It's like something straight out of an Evelyn Waugh novel.

When Argentine president Cristina Kirchner nationalized the Spanish-owned YPF oil company this past April, Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero proclaimed her “the standard-bearer of populist nationalism in Latin America.”

Based on last week’s debate, both President Obama and Governor Romney believe that squeezing the Iranians economically is the best way—and perhaps the only way—to end their nuclear-weapons program without resorting to a military strike. Of course, nobody knows if sanctions will actually work. But if the United States is truly serious about crushing Iran’s economy, it must pursue a more aggressive strategy, and it must put more pressure on Iranian trading partners.

Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner cannot claim to be the only world leader to lash out against oil speculators this week. Last Tuesday President Obama used an appearance in the White House Rose Garden to do the same. But Kirchner put her money where her mouth is. She announced she was renationalizing YPF, Argentina’s national oil company, which was privatized in 1993 and still accounts for almost all of the country’s oil production. 

In 1982, Argentina’s right wing military junta launched a sudden invasion of the Falkland Islands, the South Atlantic archipelago that has been a British possession since 1833.

Iran has a lot riding on the survival—both literal and political—of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. If the Bolivarian revolutionary beats cancer and wins another term as president, Tehran will continue to enjoy a strategic partnership with the world’s fifth largest oil exporter. But if Chávez dies, or if Venezuela’s democratic opposition finds a way to defeat him at the ballot box, the mullahs will lose their most important ally in Latin America, an ally who has effectively turned his country into an Iranian satellite.

As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have said, the relationship between Argentina and Iran just keeps getting “curiouser and curiouser.”

Analyzing Argentina’s foreign policy can sometimes be more suited to psychiatrists than journalists. Consider, for example, how President Cristina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman have handled bilateral relations with Iran.

The Brazilian magazine Veja is reporting that al Qaeda members have established an active presence in South America’s largest country, as have militants associated with Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups. They are apparently engaged in fundraising, recruitment, and strategic planning.