Iranian warships prowl South America and Lula expects them in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the month

The voyage of two Iranian navy ships to Brazil has become a tangled international affair. It’s about the frigate Dena and the warship Makranauthorized by the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva dock and stay in the port of Rio de Janeiro from January 23 to 30. But during Lula’s visit to US President Joe Biden on February 10, it was discovered that the two ships never arrived. According to the explanation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, the Itamaraty, a delay in their itinerary led them to request a postponement of the authorization to enter the port of Rio de Janeiro last week, precisely on the days of Lula’s visit to the White House. But, to avoid the diplomatic embarrassmentthe Brazilian government refused the authorization, postponing it between February 26 and March 3 under the pretext of celebrating 120 years of diplomatic relations between Brazil and Iran.

However, the two Iranian ships are not ordinary. The Makran is a former tanker converted into a powerful warship comparable to the US Navy’s expeditionary sea base. It is used as a base for small boats and planes. In addition, it is able to carry millions of liters of fuel in its tanks, so it has the autonomy to sail for months on the high seas without refueling. According to the Iranian authorities, it would have a mobility autonomy of two years. In 2021, the Pentagon intercepted it as it was heading towards Venezuela with seven boats with high-speed missiles on board, which generated a strong diplomatic crisis with the government of Nicolás Maduro, which was finally forced to refuse to allow it to dock due to pressure from Washington. The Dena, for its part, carries four Qader missiles which have a range of 300 km and are described by Iran as “the most powerful and accurate missiles in the Iranian Navy”.

The Brazilian stopover of the two ships is part of a larger plan, decided during a meeting held in November 2022 by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which, across the seas, wants to strengthen the image of Iran in the world, weakened by months of continuous internal protests. “We want to establish a naval command center in the Pacific,” Admiral Shahram Irani said on January 11, “and for that we will be present in the Panama Canal in 2023.”

The news created a debate in Brazil and across America. The Panama Canal separates the United States from Latin America and is the strategic passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Therefore, any problem in its functioning would have repercussions on the world economy. However, under the 1977 international treaty establishing the neutrality status of the canal, the Panamanian government allowed the presence of Iranian vessels “as long as they meet international standards”. While former Florida Governor Jeb Bush accused Panama of helping Iran circumvent sanctions that further block its oil exports, but against Lula he was the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Michael McCaul. In a February 10 statement, he strongly criticized the Brazilian president’s decision to suspend the docking of Iranian ships. “It is unacceptable for Lula to simply postpone instead of prohibit his docking because of the meeting with Biden. One of these ships, the Makran, is suspected of arms trafficking with Venezuela. President Biden must urgently ask Lula to categorically reject any future docking of these two ships.

According to the Brazilian investigative journalist Leonard Coutinhothe fact that they did not dock at the port of Rio de Janeiro was not due to a delay on their route, as Itamaraty stated, but to the activities of the US intelligence services. In addition, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel had announced in recent days: “Washington will monitor Tehran’s naval activities in the Western Hemisphere.” It is no coincidence that the US Air Force made two major flights a week before the ships were supposed to arrive in Rio. According to Coutinho, on January 16, the aircraft WC-135R Constant Phoenix 64-14836, also nicknamed “nuclear trackerleft Puerto Rico passing near the territorial waters of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and part of Brazil, near the state of Espírito Santo. It is the same route, but in the opposite direction, that the two Iranian ships should follow to reach Panama from Rio de Janeiro. Then, on a second flight, the plane flew over South America in the opposite direction from the outward direction, taking measurements in the Caribbean Sea, Panama, the northern part of the Venezuelan coast and, later in the waters of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

The WC-135R specializes in detecting and measuring nuclear activity in the atmosphere. According to Coutinho, it was precisely the American measurement activities that caused the Iranians to change their road plan, probably to hastily seek an alternative solution and avoid their operations being discovered. This is why the Makran and the Dena would move these days near the territorial waters of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay as reported by Coutinho. If the two ships were indeed carrying radioactive materials or weapons intended for testing on the high seas in friendly countries such as Venezuela, the United States, thanks to these recent surveys in the region, are now able to detect any nuclear anomalies and would be aware of it. . As for Iran, it is logical to assume that it has every interest in continuing its nuclear escalation in distant and friendly waters like those of Latin America, especially since the agreement on the issue with the Biden government is at a standstill. Added to the nuclear risk is that of arms deliveries.

“Iran has already used its boats to smuggle weapons to its allies, for example to the Houthis in Yemen. In the future, he could use them for terrorist activities in Latin America,” he said. Once Zimmt, a researcher at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) of the Terrorism Investigation Project. “It seems that Iran wants to expand its military cooperation with Brazil. This type of activity in Latin America can be used as a deterrent message for the United States, which is engaged in military activities with Israel and its Arab partners in the Gulf,” Zimmt added.

During his two previous mandates, Lula had received the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad andn 2009 to intensify exchanges between the two countries. In 2010, he attempted, with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for Tehran to sign a nuclear agreement, angering US President Barack Obama. In 2019, also under the government of Jair Messiah Bolsonaro, Brazil turned a blind eye by allowing two sanctioned Iranian ships carrying 100,000 tonnes of corn to dock. They were stuck for 50 days because, fearing sanctions, the national oil company Petrobras refused to refuel. A Federal Supreme Court decision resolved the issue.

On January 1, Lula’s inauguration ceremony took place in the presence of none other than the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Ghalibaf is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2007 for supporting terrorism. The next day’s private meeting between Ghalibaf and Lula produced results.

Iran’s Ambassador to Brazil, Hossein Garibiasked to discuss with the Vice President and Minister of Industry and Commerce, Geraldo Alckminthe purchase of 40 aircraft from the Brazilian Embrace. The contract was negotiated in 2016 and a plane was even sent to Iran for testing. With the arrival of Donald Trump in the US presidency and the return of sanctions, Embraer withdrew from the agreement. However, according to Iranian diplomats, with the new Lula government, the purchase could take place. “With Lula, everything will be easier,” Garibi told Brazilian news site Poder 360 in late November. “Your government can lay the groundwork and propose laws and regulations to Congress to broaden the participation of trading partners. There are preferential trade agreements between Brazil and other countries. We need that to happen with Iran as well,” Garibi said.

The Latin American giant imports about $1 billion worth of goods from Iran every year, 90% of which is fertilizer. Instead, Brazil mainly exports soybeans and corn to Iran, worth around $5 billion a year. However, beyond trade relations with an oppressive regime which, it should be remembered, kills hundreds of dissidents in their country, the story of the two ships Dena and Makran now risks becoming Lula’s first big headache. in its foreign policy.

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