The surprising object lesson: hard-headed Scotland, which in the 17th century attempted to build an overland trading route across the isthmusofPanama starting in an area known as Darien.
This reinforced the Americans' desire to build and control a canal across the isthmusofPanama, so that their ships could move between the Atlantic and the Pacific without going all the way round Cape Horn (as the American battleship Oregon had to do during the war).
Ortega's forces are dredging the river as part of an Iranian-sponsored project to build a canal along the Isthmusof Nicaragua that will rival the Panama Canal.