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One day after the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Nicaragua’s “co-president,” Rosario Murillo, offered her “condolences” without much fuss. She did not condemn the events or lash out against the United States, as she often does both publicly and privately. Instead, analysts say, she spoke “as if a natural disaster had occurred.” The reaction does not match the magnitude of what happened, especially given that it involved the invasion of one of his political allies: Iran.
“Our sincere condolences to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the martyrdom of its people and of Ayatollah Khamenei and his family as well, as our comrade Ramón Moncada (Nicaragua’s ambassador) told us. And united before God, we present ourselves with humility, always urging peace, peace and goodness,” Murillo said briefly during her monologue on March 2, 2026.
Meanwhile, the “co-president,” Daniel Ortega, chose to remain silent. His only public gesture was placing his signature—alongside Murillo’s—on a brief statement condemning “all forms of war” and calling on God for “the miracle of peace.”
His silence in the face of this situation, economist Enrique Sáenz warns, places him “under the table watching the storm pass by.”
The cautious reaction from Nicaragua’s regime is not accidental and has not gone unnoticed, especially because Ortega and Murillo have maintained an alliance with the ayatollahs since 1979, when both declared themselves “twin revolutions.” Analysts warn that the dictators are trying to avoid becoming the focus of attention for the United States, which has recently “eliminated” leaders of nations it considers problematic.
What is happening in Iran and previously, with the capture of Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela, sends “a very clear message to Ortega and the Nicaraguan military leadership”, warns lawyer and former congressman Eliseo Núñez. “This is not about invasion or war. What is now on the table is selective elimination. That places Ortega, the Army, and everyone else in a position of enormous fear,” he says.
He adds that there has been a “dramatic shift” in the military methods being applied by the United States. “Before, the probability of death for the Army’s top command was low, while the highest probability was for the soldier going to war. Now that’s no longer the case.” This change, he says, “must be analyzed very carefully by the presidential couple, as well as by the Army itself.”
The End of the “Twin Revolutions”
Despite waving the banner of the “twin revolutions” for four decades, neither Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, nor the Nicaraguan Army are willing to confront the United States at this moment, according to analysts. That “does not mean they are going to give in,” Núñez warns. “It mainly means they believe they must do whatever is necessary to survive over time.”
Sáenz believes Ortega and Murillo’s current strategy is “uncertain.” They may be trying to “ride out the storm under the table,” keeping as low a profile as possible while buying time.
He also notes that Nicaragua’s dictators have shown considerable skill in reading the contradictions of the moment and adjusting their stance whenever it suits them.
He also believes that the Ortega-Murillo regime is going through “its highest level of vulnerability” since returning to power in 2007, due to the “forcefulness” of the Donald Trump Administration and because its “strategic alliance” with countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and China has “fallen apart”.
According to the economist, the alliance of the “twin revolutions” was largely “political rhetoric” and reflected Ortega’s desire to portray himself as a major international player, a global leader and member of a grand alliance confronting “the empire.”
An Ideological But Not Economic Link
In June 2023, during a visit to Managua by Iran’s then-president Ebrahim Raisi, the two governments signed three memoranda of understanding. Among them was the creation of a Joint Intergovernmental Commission for economic, trade, and scientific cooperation.
The political alliance was reaffirmed in February 2025, when Laureano Ortega Murillo — son of the co-presidents Ortega and Murillo and the government official in charge of diplomatic and trade relations — said that Nicaragua and Iran maintain a political and ideological alliance against what he called “the empire,” referring to the United States.
However, bilateral trade between Managua and Tehran is almost nonexistent, according to data from Nicaragua’s Central Bank. Of Nicaragua’s twenty main export products in 2025, the only purchase made by Iran was 19,300 kilograms of coffee, for which it paid 129,500 dollars in May.
The value of that coffee shipment is minimal compared with the 918.4 million dollars Nicaragua earned from its global coffee exports in 2025.
Meanwhile, Nicaragua’s import statistics show no purchases from Iran.
Journalistic reports indicate that in 2012 Iran allegedly forgave Nicaragua a debt of 164 million dollars that had been incurred during Ortega’s first government in the 1980s. The original loan was 58 million dollars but grew to 164 million due to accumulated interest. However, the Central Bank of Nicaragua’s reports on external public debt contain no record of any debt owed to Iran, nor of any such debt having been forgiven by the Persian country.
Grand Promises, No Investment
The anti-imperialist rhetoric also failed to translate into tangible economic cooperation. In 2007, following a visit to Nicaragua by Iran’s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, several international cooperation agreements were announced. These agreements were formalized months later during a meeting between Ortega and Iran’s then-energy minister, Hamid Chitchian.
Among the various projects announced was a supposed joint investment by Iran and Venezuela to build a deep-water port on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. It was the first “pharaonic” project promised by Ortega after returning to power, according to the report Many promises and no investments, published by CONFIDENCIAL in 2022.
Nineteen years later, the deep-water port remains on the long list of major projects announced by the Ortega government that never moved beyond the planning stage. Of the other projects agreed upon in the 2007 agreements, the only one that materialized was the construction of a polyclinic in Villa Libertad, Managua.
However, in early May 2022, Ortega, already entrenched as a dictator ,appeared alongside Iran’s oil minister, Javab Owji, to announce the signing of new cooperation agreements.This time the list was much shorter than in 2007, but it still included a new grand promise: resuming construction of the El Supremo Sueño de Bolívar refinery, the flagship project originally promised by the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez Frías.
In addition to restarting construction of the refinery, the agreements included a deal to supply fuel to Nicaragua, to be paid for through a compensation or barter mechanism using Nicaraguan products. None of that has been fulfilled.
An Alliance to Evade Sanctions
For Núñez and Sáenz, the most valuable contribution the Iranian regime may have offered the Ortega-Murillo government was teaching them how to evade international sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on regime officials and companies linked to the ruling family over human rights violations.
“Iran has been under sanctions for 47 years, so it has developed an entire model for evading sanctions, both from Europe and from the United States. That know-how was passed on to Ortega and his family,” Núñez explains.
The former lawmaker adds that Russia and Iran have unsuccessfully tried to create a banking system parallel to the Basel system, which is the one used internationally. “They tried to do it through the BRICS, but they couldn’t because of pressure from the United States and because of market realities.”
