Iran and Venezuela “much ado about nothing”
Iranian Ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit the record with a total of 119 foreign trips during his eight years presidency by attending to Latin America, six times to Venezuela, three times to Bolivia and two times to Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador. Venezuela's late president Hugo Chavez who called Ahmadinejad the "gladiator of the anti- imperialist battle" also had visited Iran nine times since 2005 and signed more than 100 contracts worth tens of billions dollars, of which almost all of them have been canceled. Venezuela, after China (with $45 billion worth of contracts) ranks first in term of the number of contracts with Iran, but these contracts mostly faced delay or cancellation. After all of these agreements, Iran's exports to Venezuela were only $19.4 million, during Ahmadinejad's last year as president and the figure increased by 5.2 times and reached $120 million during Iran's last fiscal year, ended on March 2014, according to Iran...