SpyTalk

With Russian bombers making a provocative visit to Venezuela Thursday, it looks like Nicaragua's erstwhile Marxist president, Daniel Ortega, is chomping at the bit to reprise his brief, and disastrous, star role in the cold war three decades ago.

Last week Ortega became the only national leader outside of Moscow to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, invaded by Russian troops in early August.

And the reaction from Washington was swift, if low key.
 
On Wednesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez cancelled a long-planned visit to Nicaragua, scheduled for later this month, because "circumstances have changed," according to the American ambassador in Managua.

"The secretary's office said that now is not an appropriate moment for the visit because circumstances have changed," U.S. ambassador Robert Callahan told reporters.

Callahan declined to link the cancellation directly to Ortega's recognition of the two Black sea provinces.

But he said, "We have have publicly said regarding ... the Russian occupation of these two entities and the Russian recognition, that this is a violation of some of the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council."

Ortega may also be angling to get Moscow re-involved militarily in Nicaragua, observers said.

As a leader of the Marxist-dominated Sandinistas who took power in 1979, Ortega allied himself with Cuba and the Soviet Union, which supplied him with small arms, Mi-24 combat helicopters and some 2,000 portable ground-to-air SA-7 missiles, called MANPADS.

Ortega recently reneged on an agreement with Washington to destroy the missiles. 

Since he returned to power in 2006, Ortega has also aligned himself with Venezuela's firebrand president Hugo Chavez, who this week welcomed the nonstop arrival of two Russian strategic bombers from across the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. A Russian Navy flotilla has also scheduled a port call in November.
 
Ortega has also irritated Washington by accepting Iran's offer to undertake large-scale infrastructure projects in Nicaragua, the hemisphere's second poorest country after Haiti, but Tehran has yet to show any signs of fulfilling its promises.