The Latin American Report # 715

Iran's top diplomat in Buenos Aires left Argentina this Saturday, according to the chancellor of Javier Milei's government, as stated by EFE. Relations between Tehran and the South American country have been tense since the last decade of the last century, especially after the deadly attack against the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in 1994. Iran has been held judicially responsible for this act together with Hezbollah, which would have been the executing arm of it and another attack two years earlier against the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital. In other words, there is a complicated recent history, which, as expected, has been a breeding ground for the right in its battles against Peronist Kirchnerism, accused of covering up the facts and other irregularities such as the controversial death of prosecutor Natalio Alberto Nisman.

If anyone could overheat and escalate that line to the maximum, that someone is Javier Milei. "It is hard to imagine anything more aberrant than being an accomplice to an attack against one's own people. To think that there were Argentines who collaborated with those who killed their compatriots to protect those responsible and to obscure the search for Justice," he said at a commemorative event in 2024. "We come to break with what different governments have done regarding the AMIA case in the last 30 years," Milei assured.

During his presidential campaign, and surely after as owner of Balcarce 50, he plainly stated that he would be strongly aligned with Israel and the United States, in good and bad times, mechanically. On February 28, his office published a statement celebrating "the joint operation carried out by the United States and Israel [...] that resulted in the elimination of Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and one of the most evil, violent, and cruel people that human history has ever seen." Thus, the expulsion of Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, now former Counselor and Chargé d'Affaires ad interim of Iran in Buenos Aires, was the final point of a domino effect activated with the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "terrorist organization", after having previously declared in January as such its Quds Force.

Iran protested the measure in harsh terms, and the Argentine Foreign Ministry reacted by expelling Soltani Tehrani. "In compliance with the provisions of the Argentine government, the former chargé d'affaires of the Islamic Republic of Iran has already left the national territory," the Argentine chancellor said on X. "If the United States requested it, yes. Any help they consider [for the war against Iran] will be given," said the Pink House's spokesperson, Javier Lanari, last month, showing that Milei is serious when he says that his fate is tied to that of Washington and Tel Aviv.

China vs. USA, via Panama

Beijing is not so quiet at all about what happened in Panama 👇