Iran will dispatch warships to the Panama Canal this year, Iranian officials vowed Thursday in a sign that Tehran seeks to expand its military footprint far beyond the Middle East and into the backyard of the U.S.
Iranian Rear Adm. Shahram Irani, commander of the Iranian navy, offered few details about the planned mission during a public speech, but state-controlled media played up its ominous nature.
The Islamic republic’s “navy units are getting closer to the coasts of the Americas,” said the opening of an article posted on the website of the government-run Fars News Agency.
Adm. Irani characterized the mission as part of Iran’s plan to spread its fingerprints around the globe.
The country’s growing maritime capabilities “should be utilized to pave the way for materializing the Islamic-Iranian civilization,” he said. He indicated that Tehran sees a much broader strategic effort to export its influence to the Americas.
“Iranian army [and] navy forces are present in any ocean if needed,” Adm. Irani said, according to Fars.
It’s unclear how many Iranian ships might set sail for the Panama Canal, the strategically vital Central American waterway that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Iranian officials said an exact date for the voyage hasn’t been set but would be sometime this year. Tehran referred to the move as a deployment, suggesting an extended stay in Latin America, although the exact time elements were not clear.
Iranian tensions with the U.S. are rising, and the Biden administration’s policy toward the Islamic republic is growing uncertain.
The collapse last year of diplomatic talks between Tehran and the U.S. seemingly spelled the end of the administration’s efforts to revive the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief.
Resurrecting that deal was the central pillar of President Biden’s Iran policy.
Iran has offered direct military assistance, including armed drones, to Russia for its war in Ukraine. U.S. officials have suggested that Iran’s military partnership with Moscow played a role in ending JCPOA negotiations.
Analysts said Tehran’s announcement Thursday was the culmination of a decades-long effort to forge diplomatic relationships, economic partnerships and bilateral pacts with Latin American countries.
“This is what Iran has been building in Latin America for the past 30 or 40 years,” Joseph Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society who studies Latin America, told the Arab news outlet Al Mayadeen.
Mr. Humire said Iran has been preparing for such missions by holding military exercises with Russia and China in recent years.
Iran’s push into Latin America is perhaps best exemplified by deepening ties between Iran and Venezuela under socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro.
The two countries signed a 20-year bilateral cooperation agreement last summer that was designed in part to help Tehran and Caracas counter U.S. economic sanctions. The deal called for partnerships and collaboration in a host of arenas, including energy, defense and engineering.
Analysts say Iran also has been working behind the scenes to increase its influence in the region.
“To expand its influence, Iran has developed a missionary network built on mosques, cultural centers, educational institutions, media outlets, and publishing houses, which it has sustained with both itinerant and resident clerics either from Iran or trained in Iran,” Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in an analysis last year.
“This network has run in parallel with official diplomatic relations managed through embassies and other bilateral contacts,” he wrote. “It has thrived both in countries whose governments, like the Maduro regime in Venezuela, are allies of Iran, and in places like Colombia where the government is closely aligned with the United States.”
Iranian warships have previously appeared to be headed for the region. In the summer of 2021, U.S. officials monitored several Iranian navy ships thought to be heading for Venezuela.
The vessels eventually changed course and sailed along the coast of Africa.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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