Bicycle and oil deals cement Chavez's ties to Iran

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez enveloped his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a bear hug on Sunday and the two men backed their anti-U.S. rhetoric with deals on everything from bicycles to oil.
In a typically verbose speech, robust ex-paratrooper Chavez lambasted their common enemy, Washington.
"If the U.S. empire succeeds in establishing its dominance, there will be no future for humanity. Therefore we should save humanity and end the American empire," Chavez told a crowd at the University of Tehran.
Chavez also criticized the current offensive by Israel, Iran's arch-enemy, against Lebanon as "both fascism and terrorism." This chimed with the view of Iran's president who has compared Israel's conduct to that of Adolf Hitler.
A beaming Ahmadinejad presented Chavez with the golden "High Medallion of the Islamic Republic of Iran" and slipped a blue sash around his chest.
"Mr Chavez is my brother, the brother of the whole Iranian nation and of all freedom-seeking people in the world," he said.
"He is a perpetual warrior against the dominant system, a worshipper of God and a servant of the people," he added.
Chavez and Ahmadinejad are both ex-military populists who take a hawkish price stance in the OPEC oil cartel. They enjoy a close personal rapport.
Both countries frequently boast they are steeled for any military assault the United States may launch.
Venezuelan Energy and Mines Minister Rafael Ramirez echoed the leaders' defiant attitude by threatening to cut oil exports to the United States if Washington did not drop its hostile stance toward Chavez's administration.