When British Airways launched direct flights last week between Pittsburgh and London, the ayatollahs in Tehran must have caught wind of it, and decided to fight back. On Monday, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Mahan airline’s first flight was on its way to Caracas, Venezuela, carrying a Foreign Ministry delegation.

It’s apparent the political pariahs Iran and Venezuela can’t stand being outdone by Western Pennsylvania. This is amusing.

Venezuela and Iran both face widespread economic sanctions from the global community for human rights abuses and sponsoring terrorism. Just this week, the Trump administration heaped tough new sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear agreement last year, and has increased sanctions on Venezuela to pressure the government to hand over power to the opposition.

The truth is that Mahan, Iran’s second-largest commercial airline, has been banned from airports across Europe. The United States has blacklisted Mahan since 2011 for providing support to the Quds elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. It recently halted flights to Germany and France due to sanctions over its alleged military transport flights to Syria, where Iran supports President Bashar Assad’s forces. Mahan is losing money, losing markets and it’s expanding to Venezuela when no other country will do business with Iran.

Meanwhile, virtually nothing has been reported in the American media about a sudden climate disaster striking Iran. Extreme heavy rains have flooded 26 of its 31 provinces, killing more than 70 people and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, according to Al-Monitor, BBC, Al Jazeera and other international news agencies.

Ignore, if you can, the fact that these biblical torrents began March 16-17, the same day that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged all Iranians to curse the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia following the reinstatement of U.S. sanctions, and the threat of Israel solidifying its claim on the Golan Heights.

“Put all your curses on those who created the current situation,” Rouhani urged Iranians in a nationally televised speech, adding that “the United States, the Zionists,” and Saudi Arabia were to blame.

After a week of nonstop rain and more flooding, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 23 commanded the Iranian armed forces to participate in the relief efforts, frustrated that international aid was not forthcoming to the International Red Crescent, the Islamic arm of the Red Cross.

While U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has indicated the United States is willing to help if asked, Iran now blames the American sanctions for a slow-to-nonexistent international relief effort. Last week Rouhani declared that Iran will rebuild despite American efforts to thwart a recovery.

This is stunningly defiant. Iran refuses to accept any responsibility for its foreign policy of aggression, as defined by its president’s call for curses and use of commercial airlines for military support against sworn enemies.

Let Iran turn to its trusted allies for assistance. Allies like Venezuela, perhaps?