Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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.

While the United Nations is doing its best to legitimize the forthcoming Durban III “anti-racism” bash, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears intent on blowing the U.N.’s cover. Each year for the past five years, Ahmadinejad has chosen to speak on the opening day of the General Assembly’s so-called general debate, when all the presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers annually descend on New York City.

A Washington Post editorial today correctly notes that, despite the policies of the Obama administration, "There has been no change in Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons or in its aggressive efforts to drive the United States out of the Middle East." The sanctions were supposed to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. But the policy has not been able to achieve its stated goal.

Iran has long stonewalled the IAEA, the organization tasked with enforcing multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that demand a halt to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities.

Tom Gross, a Middle East analyst based in Israel, recently gave an interview to Radio Farda, the pro-democracy branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that broadcasts in Iran. Gross discussed Iran, Israel, democracy, and the Middle East, among other topics. The interview was translated into Farsi and posted on Radio Farda's website (accessible here).

Last week Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged that Iran’s uranium enrichment program had suffered a setback: “They were able to disable on a limited basis some of our centrifuges by software installed in electronic equipment,” the Iranian president told reporters. This was something of an understatement.

Last Friday in Moscow, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev signed a formal agreement obliging his country to help Venezuela launch a nuclear energy program. Vladimir Putin first floated the idea of Russian-Venezuelan nuclear cooperation back in 2008, following the Georgian war, and he signed a preliminary nuclear accord with Hugo Chávez this past April. On Friday, Medvedev and Chávez finalized the deal.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is visiting Tehran today, along with his sidekick, Bolivian president Evo Morales. It’s Chávez’s ninth trip in the past 18 months but this one’s special because he’s stopping over on his way back from Moscow, where he announced a nuclear deal with the Russians.

After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speeches, press conferences, and interviews in New York City last week, it’s obvious the Iranian president lives in a parallel universe. This has been difficult for many in the West to grasp. The Western reflex to believe that there are “universal truths” is irrepressible.

What causes Western intellectuals and journalists to suspend their critical faculties and euphorically embrace genocidal anti-Western regimes and tyrants like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq?