Happy Birthday, Mr. President Chavez ... Happy Birthday to Hugh!

President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

As if things weren't confusing enough for President Bush as the Iraq War and the Israeli-Hezbollah-Lebanon fighting were already taxing his abilities to keep track of what his foreign policies have wrought ... who should be in Tehran, Iran receiving birthday gifts (really!) from the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran

Caracas? Tehran? Baghdad? Beirut? Shiite? Sunni? ... What's the connection? Oh yes, that's right ... oil!

And Chavez's birthday present (one day late, but a present, nonetheless) is ... some oil investment deals that will have Bush consulting with his Pentagon bosses as to what we ought to do about this new development. Oh yes, Ahmadinejad will also be giving Chavez a "birthday" medal of some sort -- the "High Medallion of the Islamic Republic of Iran" for ... just being a thorn in the White House's side, as far as I can tell.

The Venezuelan delegation includes Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez and they will be signing several oil deals today and tomorrow before Chavez leaves Iran late on Sunday. Obviously, this will anger some of Bush's closest friends and campaign financiers, but Gholamreza Manouchehri, CEO of Iran's Petropars Company, is planning on signing a couple of long term oil investment deals with Venezuela.

Interestingly, long before Chavez was even on the scene as a world leader, we were anticipating some sort of Iran-Latin America (a potential "future" Venezuela, actually) "connection" vis-a-vis oil back in the 1990's while I was "political advisor" to the Royal Saudi Air Force -- something about which, even then, the Saudis were concerned.

Bush probably shouldn't have made such ugly statements about Chavez immediately after he was elected -- and again, that "axis [sic] of evil" statement is coming back to bite him -- and all of the rest of us in America --- in the pants.

Think about it ... what do Iran and Venezuela have in common? Politics? Religion? Morality? Regional "closeness"? A big "No" to all of these! Their only common connection is a deep dislike of the United States of America personified by their personal antagonism with/towards George W. Bush.