Ahmadinejad: Chavez will rise again, or something

The heart bleeds, Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Chávez would “return on resurrection day”. He said he had “no doubt that Chávez will return to Earth” along with Jesus and Imam Mahdi, the most revered figure among Shia Muslims, to help “establish peace, justice and kindness” in the world. Announcing a day of mourning, Ahmadinejad also said he believed something “suspicious” caused Chávez’s cancer.

Oh, you mean the kind of “peace, justice, and kindness” he established in Venezuela? I’m sure the world can hardly wait for that messianic reappearance. As for that whole “suspicious” death thing, that’s the same line Chavez’s vice president Nicolas Maduro was peddling yesterday, hinting that “historical enemies” were responsible for their dear leader’s illness:

Chavez himself was super paranoid about the causes behind his cancer, and didn’t shy away from suggesting that the United States was behind a bout of illnesses affecting Latin American leaders — ’cause hey, if even the smallest chance to defile the United States presents itself, why not take it, right? No doubt they’d like their people to think that the U.S. is that cravenly enterprising, even if it is only about ridding the world of an autocratic, corrupt strongman directly inflicting misery upon his masses and allying himself with the world’s most nefarious actors. Those actors, by the way, were also distraught about the loss of one of the world’s pioneeringly violent and underhanded leftist leaders:

In Syria, where civil war has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives over the past two years, there was gratitude for Chávez’s unstinting support in the face of western hostility. The state news agency, Sana, praised Chávez’s “honourable stance towards the conspiracy against Syria as he announced repeatedly his solidarity with the Syrian leadership and people in the face of the heinous imperialistic campaign hatched against it”. …

Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador and one of Chávez’s closest allies, said: “We have lost a revolutionary, but millions of us remain inspired.” …

In Cuba, President Raúl Castro’s government declared two days of national mourning and ordered the flag to fly at half-mast, declaring its “deep and excruciating sorrow” at the news and describing him as “one of their most outstanding sons”. …

The Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Chávez was “a great leader”, while Russia’s UN ambassador ,Vitaly Churkin, called his death a tragedy.

…Er, agree to disagree. The real tragedy here is only that Chavez managed to hold on to power for as long as he did:

All of this could have been predicted, and wasn’t particularly surprising from a president who believed that one must take the side of any enemy of the “empire.” That Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe was a “freedom fighter,” or that Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko presided over “a model of a social state.” Saddam Hussein was a “brother,” Bashar al-Assad had the “same political vision” as the Bolivarian revolutionaries in Venezuela. He saw in the madness of Col. Gaddafi an often overlooked “brilliance” (“I ask God to protect the life of our brother Muammar Gaddafi”). The brutal terrorist Carlos the Jackal, who praised the 9/11 attacks from his French jail cell, was “a good friend.” He praised and supported FARC, the terrorist organization operating in neighboring Colombia. The list is endless.

• It’s come to this: Venezuela approves funds to relieve the toilet-paper shortage
• Oh, lovely: Iran to preside over United Nations arms-control forum later this month
• Venezuela’s Maduro really hitting this American “imperialist meddling” thing hard, huh?

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