House Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington, 11 Jan 2012 – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released the following statement today on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cuba, the third stop on his ‘tour of tyrants’ trip to Latin America. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:
“Fidel Castro stated the true purpose of the Iran-Cuba alliance when he stood next to Iran’s so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ during a visit to Iran in 2001 and said, ‘Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees.’ The dangerous alliance between Iran and Cuba has only grown stronger since, and today’s visit to Cuba by Ahmadinejad illustrates that it continues to expand.
“Both Iran and Cuba have clear intentions of harming the U.S., and both support extremist groups dedicated to bringing destruction to our nation or destabilizing our allies. In the past few years, Iran has propped up Cuba’s failing economy by providing it with an increased line of credit and loans to ramp up their economic and energy cooperation. They also work together on biotechnology research that could have weapons applications, and continue to share sensitive intelligence information that could harm the United States and our allies.
“Iran and Cuba are both state-sponsors of terrorism, and need to be treated as immediate threats to our national security. Just as the Iranian regime has rejected every overture by the Administration, the Castro regime will never be coddled into changing its ways. In fact, by easing economic pressure on Cuba, the Obama Administration is making the regime stronger and better able to maintain its iron grip on the Cuban people and continue to threaten U.S. interests.
“We must increase pressure on Cuba for the same reasons we must increase pressure on Iran – to protect U.S. security, and to stand with the oppressed people of each nation.”