Venezuela welcomes any U.S. enemy or rival with open arms. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will visit Venezuela on Wednesday, and a Russian fleet will conduct war games with the Venezuelan Navy. Iran is also heavily involved in Venezuela, and China is pursuing oil trade links with the South American dictatorship.

Some of Russia’s most impressive ships will dock at Venezuela’s La Guaira port before conducting war games with the Venezuelan Navy. The nuclear-powered battle cruiser Peter the Great is the largest serving surface combatant in the world that is not an aircraft carrier. It carries 20 nuclear cruise missiles and up to 500 surface-to-air missiles. The guided-missile destroyer Admiral Chabenenko will arrive with Peter the Great, along with several support vessels. This is Russia’s first deployment in the Caribbean for 20 years.

During this time, Medvedev will spend two days visiting the country. Russian and Venezuelan oil and gas companies will also sign an agreement to form a joint energy conglomerate.

Of course, this is not the start of Russian-Venezuelan cooperation. Venezuela has spent billions on Russian arms, and Russia has even offered Venezuela help with nuclear energy.

Iran is also heavily involved in Venezuela. Iranian companies are building apartments for Venezuela’s poor. They are also involved in manufacturing cars, tractors and bicycles.

This of course is not generosity on Iran’s part. It gets a lot in return for its investment. Venezuela is Iran’s gateway to Latin America. Planes fly between Tehran and Caracas every fortnight. According to an April terrorism report from the U.S. State Department, the passengers on these flights are not subject to immigration and customs controls. These flights can allow Iranian agents and terrorists to fly straight into America’s backyard.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has concluded that Venezuela actively funds and provides safe haven for the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Middle East security analysts Jonathan D. Halevi and Ashley Perry wrote for Ynetnews this summer that “In Venezuela and other South American countries Hezbollah has been waging a long-term campaign to convert the native Indians to Shiite Islam.” They cited a Kuwaiti newspaper saying that “Hezbollah was training young men from Venezuela in its military camps in south Lebanon to prepare them to attack American targets.”

Iran, and its overseas arm Hezbollah, is deeply rooted in Venezuela.

China too has its thumbs in the Venezuelan pie. Venezuela is China’s seventh-largest oil supplier. In October, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez visited Beijing. There he agreed to double his country’s daily exports of oil to China to 200,000 barrels per day. This will likely come at the expense of Venezuelan oil exports to the United States.

Russia, Iran and China are also working with other nations in Latin America. Many in the area are happy to open their doors wide to America’s enemies. Venezuela is just currently one of the most hospitable.

South America has a lot to offer the United States’ enemies. It is resource-rich and close enough to the U.S. to make it a convenient place to station listening posts and to use as a base for smuggling. Allowing any nation to establish a strong power base in South America would be very dangerous for the U.S.

So what is in store for South America? There is in fact another U.S. enemy rising on the scene with far stronger cultural and, importantly, religious ties to Latin America than any of the nations discussed above. A powerful, anti-American European conglomerate, influenced by a powerful Catholic Church, is prophesied in the Bible ultimately to dominate Latin America. For more information, see our article “Recolonizing Latin America?”