Fanaticism Breeds Unlikely Friendships - or Not

Perhaps it isn't all that unlikely that a friendship can evolve between a fascist dictator and a fanatical socialist. It's extremes that bring them together, after all. They identify a common enemy, that large middle ground comprised of reasonable, rational, democratic types. Reason and fanaticism don't meld very well, they're antithetical by nature. Like unreasoning faith, but without the gentle resolve of faith. It's what happens when the soul withers and turns black with disuse; fanaticism sets in. It hardly matters what it supports, whether religion or politics, fanatics are purposeful brothers-in-arms.

Look here, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, enbraced by and himself embracing the newly-emerging socialist leaders of Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Here is a group of egotistical "saviours" of their countries, confirmed dictators, elections notwithstanding. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose governance is divinely inspired by Allah, whose critics find their way into Iran's sordid prisons, whose plan is to gift the people of Iran with the means with which to obliterate a neighbour is their sincere friend.

And here is Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who, after his recent re-election victory plans to rescind a law against three-term presidencies to ensure his place in Venezuelan history as president-for-life. Thus emulating his beloved Fidel Castro, the father figure of socialist politics in Latin America. They embrace one another, compliment and dote upon one another, swoon in a paeon of brotherhood everlasting. Their common enemy is clear - the United States of America (everyone's enemy, right?) and by extension its nasty little cousin the State of Israel. For they all support the rightful aspirations of the downtrodden and subordinated Palestinian people.

And the United States must feel somewhat uneasy, a trifle queasy with its memory of recent though historical convergences reminiscent of the present. Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution brings with it Cuban-style reforms to his impoverished people living in an generously oil-endowed country. The Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev threatened the stability (and the longevity) of the United States with the Cuban Missile Crisis, remember that? The hundreds of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads that were assembled on Cuban soil, pointing directly toward the U.S.?

I bet the U.S. remembers and remembers well the stand-off between President Kennedy and President Kruschev. Read Kruschev's memoirs to understand how frightened he felt when Kennedy threatened to bomb Cuba if the USSR didn't back down. Listen to Robert MacNamara speak about his utter disbelief when, years later at a meeting in Cuba with Fidel Castro he asked the great leader what the outcome might have been if Kruschev hadn't backed down. Annihilation of Cuba, Casto responded with a shrug. The country was expendible, the movement was not.

And here we have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with his stark determination to achieve nuclear power for domestic energy purposes in a country with an oil surfeit, like that of Venezuela. They do indeed have much in common. Venezuela and several other Latin American countries belong to the Non-Aligned Movement which last year backed Iran's right to nuclear energy. And Hugo Chavez stood alone in opposing an IAEA resolution that found Iran violated nuclear safeguards.

"Hugo is my brother", Mr. Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Caracas last year. "Venezuela and Iran have demonstrated that together, out of the reach of hegemony and American imperialism, they can work and improve." The spectre of Iran installing nuclear warheads and delivery systems on Venezuelan soil must surely have occurred to the troubled minds at the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon. That's mighty nervous-making.

Friends and brothers joined in a common purpose. Talk about conspiracy theories, huh?