debkafile Exclusive: Diplomatic minefields dog Bush in his five-nation Latin American tour – laid jointly by Iran, Venezuela and Hamas

The three-way conspiracy to darken the US president’s tour was put together in Tehran Tuesday, March 6, by Iranian leaders, visiting Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolas Maduro Moros and Hamas hard-line leader Khaled Meshaal, who arrived in Iran for the second time in a month.
Moros took the opportunity of calling George W. Bush a “criminal” at a joint news conference with Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki, so setting the tone for anti-US demonstrations awaiting him in Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala.
Meshaal said he was in Tehran to hear Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s report on his talks with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh last Saturday but, according to debkafile‘s Iranian sources, he came for a briefing on Hamas’ role in the broad Iranian plot to overshadow the US president’s Latin American tour.
He learned from Moros that the Chavez government would advance forthwith to his movement and the Palestinian Hamas government the sum of $50m and finance future arms deals. Iran offered to arrange the money transfer through Persian Gulf banks.
During the Bush tour, the Venezuelan government and Hamas plan to ceremonially open a Hamas Office in Caracas, licensed to handle the affairs of the substantial and affluent South American Palestinian colonies. The largest are in Chile and Nicaragua.
Meshaal and his entire Damascus-based political bureau will be invited for a formal visit to Caracas. Hugo Chavez, whose nickname is a “Fidel Castro with $50m dollars,” will extend the Palestinian terrorist leader a welcome befitting a head of state.
These steps by the head of the world’s third largest oil-producing nation are more than a slap in the face for the US president; they have far-reaching strategic significance, say debkafile‘s analysts:
1. Chavez is extending his feud with the United States beyond the American continent to the Middle East.
2. Caracas is placing its vast cash resources at the disposal of a Tehran-sponsored Palestinian terrorist militia, thereby lining up with the Islamic Republic against the United States and Israel on a new world front.
3. The upsurge of funds will make available to the jihadi Hamas sophisticated and heavy weaponry which they could not afford before.
4. Venezuela is helping Iran break the economic and financial embargo the United States, Europe and Israel have clamped down on the Hamas government. Its ministers will no longer need to bring suitcases full of banknotes through the Rafah crossing into Gaza. The transfers will be wired from Venezuelan banks to institutions in the Gulf.
5. Hamas’ hand in power-sharing negotiations with Fatah has been strengthened. The blacklisted Hamas will no longer need the services of the internationally- recognized Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his connections with Washington to finance Palestinian government operations. The cash will flow without the Hamas government being subjected to the conditions laid down by the Middle East Quartet to recognize Israel, renounce violence and honor previous accords with the Jewish state.
6. The rejectionist Meshaal find himself strengthened in his Hamas movement after being demoted by Saudi King Abdullah.