An interesting story in The San Antonio Express-News on Iran’s recent partnership with Nicaragua and Venezuela to help finance a $350 million deep-water port on Nicaragua’s wild Caribbean shore, and then plow a connecting “dry canal” corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the populous Pacific Ocean. The dry canal scheme has been on paper for nearly 100 years, but proponents believe the plan would enrich Nicaragua by drawing Venezuelan oil and shipping business from the Panama Canal, Costa Rica and El Salvador. While the article focuses primarily on the potential security implications of this partnership, I believe the more interesting aspect is the continued economic and political engagement between Iran and Central America.

In fact, in a separate article in Commentary Magazine, Tehran’s efforts to strengthen contacts in the region are neatly detailed. As the report notes:

“…In addition to building relations with Ortega’s Sandinistas, Iran has nurtured ties with new leftist governments in Bolivia and Ecuador. And of course there is the combination of Iran and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, what Tehran calls the “axis of unity.” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also reaching out to moderate Latin American governments, most notably Brazil’s. “Iran is trying to create a geopolitical balance with the United States,” according to Bill Samii of the Center for Naval Analyses in Virginia….”