How the Islamic Republic uses media to hijack the revolutionary attitudes of Latin American countries for its own purposes

As we analyzed in the first article of this multi-part series, Iran’s interest in Latin America is not just about gaining sanctions relief or forming ideological partnerships. Iran’s primary export, after all, is not oil but its revolutionary ideology.

In their report, “How Iran exports its ideology,” the United Against Nuclear Iran group stated: “The Iranian embassy is a means to establish a pretext of commercial and cultural exchange, but its true purpose is to lay the groundwork for Iranian operatives to embed in local communities and to manage a network of espionage and terrorism.”

Iran works in South America to make allies and partners in an anti-Western alliance. It naturally seeks countries with revolutionary governments or significant revolutionary movements.

In 2012, analyst Stephen Johnson wrote: “If the purpose of Iran’s outreach in the Americas is to spread its global influence, overcome isolation from the international community, and keep the United States off balance in a location like the Western Hemisphere that it cannot ignore.”

Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, a member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), discussed how Iran targeted Argentina for expansion of its revolutionary ideology in the 1980s.

“Argentina is where Iran’s penetration began four decades ago. It is therefore the oldest and one of the better-developed networks Iran has in the region.”

According to Ottolenghi, Iran's presence in Argentina allowed it to expand to other locations.

“The mosque network affiliated with Iran in Argentina has a strong presence not just in Buenos Aires; one of their local clerics is in charge of their center in Chile; another is in charge of running converts’ trips to Iran. It remains an important hub of activity, recruitment, fundraising and proselytizing.”

A future article will examine Iran and Hezbollah’s involvement in the two terror attacks in Argentina in 1992 and 1994, which killed and injured hundreds.

A significant goal of Iran’s work in Latin America though, especially through its religious outreach and Spanish-language media, is influencing popular opinion for Islam and its proxies, including Palestinians, and against Israel and Jews.

Since 2011, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) maintains a Spanish-language news outlet called HispanTV, where it propagates news stories favorable to Iran and its partners and critical of the United States and its allies. It also publishes opinion pieces promoting conversion to Shia Islam.

Since 2004, IRIB has engaged in collaborations and content-sharing agreements with Venezuelan Venezolana de Television (VTV) and Bolivia’s state-owned media outlet, teleSUR.

While the service was briefly broadcast from Spain, it returned to broadcasting from Iran and via YouTube as “Nexo Latino.” It introduced the new channel on YouTube after repeatedly having its regular HispanTV account blocked by Google for policy violations.

In recent years, Iran has increased its media funding in foreign markets, as it has recognized the value of social media for influencing those outside of Iran, which is highly ironic given that the Iranian regime severely restricts the use of the internet and social media within its borders.

During the COVID pandemic, the Anti-Defamation League reported a significant increase in antisemitic material being spread, particularly in Spanish media.

Much of the propaganda came from media groups with known ties to the IRIB, which serves as Iran's state propaganda agency. 

A report by Atlantic Council in 2020 found that Iranian funding for the IRIB was roughly equivalent to the funding provided by the United States Agency for Global Media. However, as a proportion of total budget spending, it represents 50 times as much, which indicates how high of a value Iran places on media propaganda.

Roughly a decade ago, Hezbollah began to build up a significant media presence, first in Arabic, English, French, and Farsi, before expanding to Spanish and even Hebrew.

Much of Hezbollah’s media is focused on recruitment, and the spreading of antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda.

Anti-Israel propaganda became so prominent in Spanish-speaking and Latin American markets, that in 2012, the Spanish-language media company Fuente Latina was created to counter negative or false reporting about Israel with positive, fact-based stories about the country.

Jorge Serrano, a member of the team of advisors to the Peruvian Congress Intelligence Commission, said Iran systematically uses the media to promote Iranian interests and “attack the West.”

“It’s a large-scale psychological warfare using social networks, satellites, and Spanish-language media, which promote [Iranian] interests to attack the West and Latin America,” Serrano told Diálogo Américas.

Serrano accused Iran of using media groups like HispanTV, TeleSur, Resumen Latinoamericano, and YouTube sites like Nexo Latino and Tertulias en Cuarentena, to “spread messages of hatred and division in the countries where they want to infiltrate.”

In 2018, a group of “independent” websites, part of the International Union of Digital Medium (IUVM), was revealed to be an Iranian influence operation that aggressively repackaged and re-broadcast Iranian state media. 

Iranian-sponsored media in South America tends to push political narratives of U.S. imperialism, Israeli abuses and anti-revolutionary activities against the Iranian and Latin American revolutionary movements by American allies.

The Russian RT en Español TV station has a similar function for spreading Russian narratives, which is often sympathetic to those of the Iranian-backed sites. In fact, their different platforms sometimes link to one
another’s content.

While similar activity has been uncovered in Spain, the Iranian channels have had greater success in Latin American countries.

[Iran's attempt to influence Latin America through Spanish media is relevant to our site, ALL ISRAEL NEWS. Upon seeing some of the factually incorrect reporting and inaccurate translations of official statements made by Israeli leaders, two people loosely connected to ALL ISRAEL NEWS staff began volunteering to translate articles into Spanish in order to ensure a source of balanced news from an Evangelical perspective.]

In the third and final part of this series, we will examine the “endgame” of this revolutionary ideology, and why it is so dangerous to the U.S., Israel, and even countries in South America.