The authoritarian regimes of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua condemned Israel and pledged unwavering support for Iran after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure on Friday morning.
The operation, named “Rising Lion” by the Israeli government, also led to the successful elimination of Major General Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and top-ranking members of the Iranian regime, including key scientists of its nuclear program.
The three Latin American authoritarian regimes have fostered deep ties with Iran’s rogue Islamic regime, bonding through their shared anti-U.S. and anti-Israel sentiments. Venezuela’s socialist regime in recent years has sought an increased amount of Iranian aid to help offset the consequences of the collapse of socialism in Venezuela, most notably in Venezuela’s attempt to restore Venezuela’s rundown oil refineries.
Iran recently bolstered its cooperation with Venezuela and fellow state sponsor of terrorism Cuba after Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf visited the two rogue nations last week. Qalibaf called upon Venezuela and Cuba to stand against “global arrogance” and “neutralize” the plans of their “common enemies.” Both the Cuban and Venezuelan regime hold close ties with Iran’s proxy terror group Hezbollah.
The regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro responded to Israel’s strikes in a Foreign Ministry statement published late on Thursday Venezuela time. Foreign Minister Yván Gil described the attack as a “criminal aggression of Israel against Iran.” The Maduro regime, condemning Israel’s actions, further catalogued the strikes as a “illegitimate, unjustified military aggression in violation of international law.”
“This is an act of war that adds to the long history of crimes committed by Netanyahu’s regime, whose machinery of destruction operates outside the bounds of legality,” the statement read. “Venezuela demands an immediate end to all hostilities by Israel, which has turned its foreign policy into a permanent threat to peace in Western Asia.”
“We express our strongest solidarity with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and the Iranian people in the face of this cowardly attack,” the statement continued. “We reiterate that there will be no peace without justice, and that justice begins with stopping the arms race madness of Israel, a military enclave, genocidal perpetrators against the Palestinian people, and war criminals who have become the greatest threat to the peace of humanity.”
Hours before Israel launched its strikes on Iran, Foreign Minister Gil met with the new Iranian ambassador to Caracas Ali Chegini on Thursday, who arrived in the country on May 30. According to Gil, the encounter aimed to continue strengthening “our comprehensive cooperation framework, which covers key sectors such as energy, technology, and agriculture.”
“We continue to consolidate our strategic alliance in opposition to Western hegemonism, while expanding our bilateral relations for the mutual benefit of our peoples,” Gil said.
In the case of Cuba, the Communist Castro regime availed itself of social media to condemn Israel through posts issued by the regime’s figurehead “President” Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Díaz-Canel, speaking on behalf of the Cuban regime, condemned “in the strongest terms” Israel’s actions against Iran which, according to him, are “recklessly raising tensions in the Middle East and endangering international and regional peace and security with unforeseeable consequences.”
Rodríguez Parrilla claimed that “the attacks perpetrated by the Zionist regime of Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran are irresponsible acts that endanger peace and security in the Middle East and the world.”
The top diplomat predicted the strikes would “have unforeseeable consequences and deserve our strongest and most energetic condemnation.”
In Nicaragua, the communist regime led by “co-president” husband-and-wife dictatorial couple Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo released a statement “emphatically” condemning the “reckless aggression of the Government of Israel to the people and government” of Iran. Ortega and Murillo accused Israel of exposing the world to a “war of incalculable proportions and consequences.”
“May our voices from this Latin America, Caribbean, be heard in repudiation, rejection, and categorical repulse before a very dangerous military escalation that denies all reasoning and threatens more and more brutally the human community,” the statement read. “Our invariable solidarity with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and President Masoud Pezeshkian, with the Iranian people, as well as with the families of the defenders that the genocidal Israeli State has assassinated.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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