What are Chavez and Ahmadinejad planning for 'The Long War'?

What nations are now threatening war against America? Who might be attacking us on Memorial Day next year?

At a conference in Tehran in October 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible.”

With the audience chanting “Death to Israel, death to America, death to England,” Ahmadinejad declared, “And with the help of the Almighty, we shall soon experience a world without America and Zionism, notwithstanding those who doubt.”

On Sept. 12, 2006, Colombia’s ambassador to the OAS, Camilo Ospina, reported that Venezuela has two uranium mines. The worried ambassador told a Colombian news program, “Venezuela has not the capacity to enrich uranium, but Iran has. If this were to happen, we will have troubles indeed.”

Ten days later, President Hugo Chávez greeted President Ahmadinejad at the Caracas airport, saying, “Welcome to Venezuela, where Iran is loved. We welcome a remarkable leader — the leader of a heroic people and a revolution friendly to the Venezuelan revolution: the Islamic revolution.”

During that visit to Venezuela in 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad signed 29 treaties and contracts with Venezuelan President Chávez, including one for Iran to build an ammunition manufacturing plant in Venezuela.

Lt. Col. Chris Lozano, 47, a Marine reservist who served a tour in Iraq, said in May 2007, “The media are very focused on the immediate battle, and not on The Long War.’ There’s a reason we call it ‘The Long War’,” he said. “It could last 50 to 100 years. It’s the war against radical Islamic fascism. The frustrating thing about the media — and the general public — is that they have a short attention span and are unwilling to understand the true nature of the threat.”

Mohammed Fadhil, a Baghdad dentist, wrote an op-ed piece in the May 10, 2007, New York Daily News stating the purpose of The Long War. “It is up to us to show tyrants and murderers like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, Syria’s Bashar Assad, and their would-be imitators,” he said, “that we, the people, are not their possessions.”

Iran has about 4,850 pounds of low-enriched uranium. Even under the recent May 17 deal brokered by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz “Lula” da Silva, Iran would still retain a 2,200-pound uranium stockpile, which would not be subject to international inspection and could be reprocessed to the levels needed for a bomb.

On May 18, the day after that arrangement was announced, Iran’s government news source, the Islamic Republic News Agency, reported that Chavez spoke with Ahmadinejad by phone and told him that the nuclear deal between Iran, Brazil and Turkey was a big blow to “imperialism and hegemonic powers.” Chavez then promised “The Venezuelan revolution will back the Islamic Republic’s efforts to fight imperialism and reform oppressive structures.”

Ahmadinejad responded that Iran and Venezuela “will stay together to fight against Imperialism,” and that “both countries should boost collaboration at various levels” by new projects in “key technological spheres.”

We should realistically consider that Chávez and Ahmadinejad are planning that by next year’s Memorial Day observances we will have many more loved ones lost in The Long War.

Sharman practices law in Culpeper. His column appears each Tuesday.